Misogyny and Sexism in Suffragette’s Main Character: A Marxist Feminist Analysis
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.63822/2tzehx45Keywords:
Film analysis, gender oppression, Marxist feminism, misogyny, sexism, SuffragetteAbstract
This research analyzes the portrayal of misogyny and sexism in the film Suffragette (2015), directed by Sarah Gavron, through the lens of Marxist feminist theory. The analysis uses Silvia Federici’s Marxist feminist theory, which sees that women’s oppression is rooted not only in patriarchy but also in capitalist systems that exploit women's unpaid labor and social roles. The study focuses on the main character, Maud Watts who is a working-class woman, whose experiences reflect gender and class oppression in early 20th-century Britain. Using a qualitative method, the researcher identified 24 key scenes in the film. Nine of them represent sexism and 15 represent misogyny. The findings show that sexism is normalized through unequal labor conditions, domestic expectations, and legal marginalization, while misogyny emerges as punishment when women resist these roles, often through violence and institutional control. Maud’s transformation from a passive worker to a politically active suffragette reveals the potential for collective resistance and highlights the importance of solidarity among women. The study concludes that Suffragette is not only a historical film but also as a powerful critique of ongoing gender and class inequalities.
Downloads
References
Abbott, H. P. (2021). The Cambridge introduction to narrative (3rd ed.). Cambridge University Press.
Adami, Elisa and Fletcher, Alex (2017) 'To Think the Home in Terms of the Factory' Social Reproduction, Postproduction and Home Movies in Godard and Miéville. Third Text, 31 (1). pp. 79-95. ISSN 0952-8822
Al-Almusawi, Z. A., & Al-dihaymawee, D. T. M. (2024). A Marxist feminist study in Walter Tevis' The Queen’s Gambit. Global Scientific Review, 24, 33–42.
Anarki, R., & Yulistiyanti, A. (2023). Political discrimination against women in Abi Morgan's Suffragette (2015). Dinamika Bahasa dan Budaya: Jurnal Pengembangan Ilmu Bahasa dan Budaya, 18(1), 23–37. https://doi.org/10.35315/bb.v18i1.9303
Bordwell, D., & Thompson, K. (2008). Film art: An introduction (8th ed.). McGraw-Hill.
Chandler, D. (2021). Semiotics: The basics (4th ed.). Routledge.
Danadharta, I. (2019). Representasi feminis Marxis dalam film Suffragette. Jurnal Representamen, 5(1), 56–64.
Davis, A. R. (2021). Marxist feminism: An analysis on class structure and position of women in Malayalam movie Chemmeen. The Creative Launcher, 6(1), 78–82. https://doi.org/10.53032/TCL.2021.6.1.10
Fadillah, S., et al. (2018). The story of suffragettes’ campaign as reflected in Suffragette: A film directed by Sarah Gavron. Krinok: Jurnal Linguistik Budaya, 3(1), 1–14.
Federici, S. (2004). Caliban and the witch: Women, the body, and primitive accumulation. Autonomedia.
Federici, S. (2012). Revolution at point zero: Housework, reproduction, and feminist struggle. PM Press.
Federici, S. (2018). Witches, witch-hunting, and women. PM Press.
Herbert, Laura M. (2017). Silver Screen Sovereignty: Mexican Film And The Intersections Of Reproductive Labor And Biopolitics. [Doctoral dissertation, The University of Michigan].
Jost, J. T., & Kay, A. B. (2005). Exposure to benevolent sexism and complementary gender stereotypes: Consequences for specific and diffuse forms of system justification. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 88(3), 498–509. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.88.3.498
Lewis, A., & Mar, J. (2022). Understanding sexism: Structural mechanisms and ideological beliefs. Journal of Gender Studies, 31(1), 1–15.
Luo, J., & Li, G. (2017). Structuralism as an approach to the theoretical construction of poetic narratology. International Journal of English Literature and Social Sciences (IJELS), 2(6), 65–82. https://doi.org/10.24001/ijels.2.6.11
Marcela, et al. (2024). Marxist feminism as portrayed by the main characters in the movie Hidden Figures. ELYSIAN Journal: English Literature, Linguistics and Translation Studies, 4(2), 196–211.
Maxwell, J., & Chmiel, M. (2014). Notes toward a theory of qualitative data analysis. In U. Flick (Ed.), The SAGE handbook of qualitative data analysis (pp. 21–34). SAGE Publications Ltd.
Meyerovich, A. V. (2022). Films analysis in the perspective of literary sources: Developing the procedure of movies analysis. International Journal of Languages, Literature and Linguistics, 8(4), 45–62.
Oranga, J., & Matere, A. (2023). Qualitative research: Essence, types and advantages. Open Access Library Journal, 10(12). https://doi.org/10.4236/oalib.1108282
Palinkas, L. A., Horwitz, S. M., Green, C. A., Wisdom, J. P., Duan, N., & Hoagwood, K. (2020). Purposive sampling: Complex or simple? Research case examples. Journal of Research in Social Sciences, 15(3), 1–12. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7932468/
Poonam. (2021). Internalized misogyny and ambivalent sexism in the movie Kabir Singh. Bioscience Biotechnology Research Communications, 14(Special Issue 08), 44–48.
Riskikananti, et al. (2024). Study of moral values in characters' personality in Clouds movie by Laura Sobiech. JEEF: Journal of English Education Forum.
Saputra, I. G. N. A. S. B., & Leony, J. (2023). Misogyny and sexism towards working-class woman in Sophie Treadwell’s Machinal. UC Journal, 4(1), 28–37.
Saraswathi. (2018). The portrayal of women in the media and feminist movements. International Journal of Creative Research Thoughts (IJCRT), 6(4), 682–686.
Srivastava, K., Chaudhury, S., Bhat, P. S., & Sahu, S. (2017). Misogyny, feminism, and sexual harassment. Industrial Psychiatry Journal, 26(2), 111–113.
Subedi, K. R. (2021). Determining the sample in qualitative research. Scholars' Journal, 4, 1–10.
Sultana, A. (2012). Patriarchy and women’s subordination: A theoretical analysis. Asian Affairs, 29(4), 1–18. https://doi.org/10.3329/afj.v4i0.12929.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2025 Rosyalina Nur Aprilyani, Irma Rahmawati (Author)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
