It May Be a Man's World...

What happens when life doesn’t follow the traditional pattern? What are we left with as individuals when the expected path for our lives suddenly takes an unexpected turn?

These are the questions that Brenda, Elise, and Annie are left with in the 1996 film The First Wives Club. Each of them, for some reason or another, now find themselves divorced from their husbands after years of being together. At their age, they are unsure of how to go about life. They aren’t old by any stretch of the imagination; however, they certainly can’t keep up with the likes of their 20 something counterparts. In my opinion, they are like regular women trying to keep pace with the newer, younger superficialities of the generation following them. After reuniting at a mutual friend’s funeral, they decide to form “the first wives club” where they will go after their husbands, who left them with practically nothing after abruptly ending their marriages, and try to redeem themselves as women.

Growing up, this movie was very empowering for me to watch. In a male-dominated society, these women overcome many obstacles to show that they are not disposable women. Instead, they are forces to be reckoned with. In the end, they decide to start an organization where women who were pushed aside in their seemingly normal marriages can go to make sure they are not simply abandoned by their husbands as these three once were.

For me, this fits into Giddens’ ideas about creating self-identity. These women felt their self-identity was wife to (insert male’s name here). There basic identity was based on a man. However, when this label no longer fit, they were forced to find a new label, a new identity, without that man.

Gauntlett’s critique of Giddens explains that there are micro and macro levels of society that intermingle together to create society (93). For Brenda, Elise, and Annie, they lived their individual lives wondering where they would go since their divorce (micro) only to discover that their long lost friends are going through the exact same situation. Together, they form a bond of support and trust to help them deal with the situation eventually ending up with an organization to help women in the future (macro).

Giddens also talks about the change in traditional values in society in our modernist society (96). No longer are values so engrained in us that there is no deviation. He discusses the importance of choice in our self identity not just with how we identify ourselves, but also how we go about presenting that identity to others (96). For the women of the First Wives Club, they must seriously reflect on who they are, another important aspect of Giddens idea of self-identity, and find out who they really are. One character, Elise played by Goldie Hawn, finds her love of theater once again. She realizes that this is an important element of her life that has been slowly pushed aside. She returns to the theater in the end of the movie, though not without serious encouragement from her friends.

Each of the women needed to seriously reexamine their self-identity after everything they knew to be true about their lives suddenly disappeared. In the end, they find, not necessarily a new self-identity, but they are restored to their true self-identity. They break the mold and don’t follow the traditional standards that are set before them and, in doing so, inspire others to do the same. It may be a man's world, but these three show that women cannot be owned. Take a look.