Femininity and legal prejudice —— Comment on the original title of erin brockovich, erin brockovich, erin brockovich, erin brockovich, steven soderbergh, Julia Roberts, albert finney, Valenti Rodriguez, aaron eckhart Film Type: Biography Production Company: Universal Studios USA premiere date: March 6-5, 2000. 38+07 Poster Source: /2004/06/02/0000 14364. The HTML movie is adapted from a real case in 1993. The film was originally named "Irene Brockovich", that is, Irene Brockovich. Because Irene has always maintained the spirit of erin brockovich in the film, it is of special significance for the film to be translated into erin brockovich. Irene is a single mother with a low education. She has been divorced twice and has no money and no job, but she has three young children to support. Just as her life was in trouble and hit a wall on all sides, another unexpected car accident happened. Irene asked Ed to be her defense lawyer, but Ed failed to win the case for her. Irene, whose life is in trouble, cleverly forced Ed to hire her as a clerk in a law firm. While working as a clerk, she happened to find that there were many doubts about the information of a case in which a power company polluted public water sources. Driven by curiosity, she went to the local area to understand the cause of the matter and investigate the truth. Irene encountered all kinds of setbacks and dangers during the investigation, but she never compromised, and finally set the highest amount of out-of-court settlement in American history of $333 million, which not only defended justice, but also made her know herself again. In addition to the touching story and julia roberts's wonderful interpretation, the sexy and revealing clothing of the heroine in the film caused controversy. At the beginning of the film, we see that Irene, who is almost facing a desperate life, is in a car accident when she is isolated and helpless. In court, because of her "inappropriate" dress and words and deeds, she could not win the sympathy of judges and jurors, and the court ruled that the other party was not responsible for the accident. In the development of the story, we see that Irene is constantly being excluded and questioned because of her image. She has a good figure and is willing to boldly show off the gifts given by God. Bold dress, unadorned or even rude words naturally cannot quickly integrate into the knowledge-based lawyer industry, and female colleagues cannot accept her immediately. Even so, she didn't change her preferences. When collecting data in the waterworks, she made full use of her charm and obtained the records of the water quality test report. We also saw that Irene often worked overtime to study case materials, and even went home with heavy documents to continue her research. Her diligent working attitude finally won the respect of her colleagues. Another female lawyer in the film can be used as a reference image. She is thin and tall, very professional and dressed conservatively. Her whole body exudes a sense of indifference and distance from legal professionals, and her speech fully makes Irene feel her distrust and contempt for herself. Irene faced the same misunderstanding and prejudice when she went to investigate the client's land sale case and cancer blood test results. In 1980s, feminism rose, and more and more women came out to work. In order to win the respect of men in the workplace, they all like high bun and shoulder pads, just like the image of a strong woman, and turn this strong image into a fashion trend. I don't know when women's clothes have become one of the standards to measure their professional attitude and ability to do things. In real life, some women often suffer from improper dress. Immature young women, in particular, don't have enough judgment and experience to tell whether their clothes will leave any impression on others. "Dressing too formally means being frivolous." For the positioning of clothing, people have their own preferences and should respect each other, and should not be biased because of their appearance. For women, fashion is just another way to make up. "Fashion is a way to re-create and show your image ... Fashion styles are so diverse that it seems that each of us can have various identities in public." When feminists fought for women's rights in the 20th century, women's clothing also changed quietly. This means that the meaning of dress symbols changes with the change of social values. The change of clothing can reflect the change of thought, culture and values, and it is also the changing process of women's pursuit of freedom-clothing liberates women's body autonomy. Since ancient times, customs have restricted women too much. Although this situation has been greatly improved in modern society, the situation of women has not been fundamentally improved. Women have greatly narrowed the distance with men through paid employment, and nothing else can guarantee their freedom. Women are habitually divided into the private sphere, and the laws in the public sphere do not interfere with the private sphere; Similarly, women in the private sphere should not set foot in the public sphere, and the judicial cause is regarded as the core of legal authority, which is inconsistent with women's characteristics. In the legal profession, women have been on the edge of the legal profession for a long time after being admitted, and have not been fully accepted as professional legal persons. The relationship between women and law is a new field, and the whole modern society with law as its core should add the perspective of women, so that law and society no longer present a single "male" feature. It can be seen from the history of legal development that the law is dominated by men in the mainstream society, so for a long time, the creators and operators of the law are all men, and the spirit and thinking of the law are masculine. To some extent, the fairness and justice of justice cover up the fact of male centralism with a neutral appearance. At the beginning of entering the legal profession, women settled down in this profession by adapting to the unique professional characteristics and thinking mode of the legal profession and the standards of men. Women must be psychologically prepared to enter this industry and must apply the same standards as men. However, with the increasing proportion of women in the legal profession, women themselves have begun to influence this profession and even the law itself, although this influence is still very small. Although the traditional rule of law provides the possibility for women to participate in social life, this possibility is conditional on ignoring the characteristics of women. This makes women have to show their masculinity in traditional male spaces (such as legislatures, courts and administrative agencies) to ensure their "success". In the public sphere, femininity is still discriminated against. When Ed, the owner of the law firm, suggested that Irene change the appearance of her clothes to be in harmony with other female colleagues, Irene in turn suggested that Ed should stop wearing ties. This plot of the film raises a question: What kind of clothes should a lawyer wear? For centuries, women have been excluded from the legal profession, and society has become accustomed to taking the dress code of male lawyers as the standard of lawyers' dress. The requirement of equality before the law is to recognize and attach importance to the differences between men and women, which is reflected in the freedom and society for both men and women to develop themselves and choose themselves. The exterior of female lawyers is designed as a monotonous copy of male lawyers, and their gender characteristics are bound by customized suits and strict lines. But when a woman wears a neutral suit, she is still "marked" as a woman, and it is difficult for her to become an objective and fair person in legal practice. Not only are women's bodies associated with desire and sex appeal, but women have no place in the traditional legal profession, and even they only exist in dramatic roles such as sex offenders. At the end of the film, after completing the lawsuit in the spirit of erin brockovich, Irene quipped in front of the surprised chief lawyer: "I don't have a law degree, so I can only provide sexual services to 634 clients. Really exhausted. " The proportion of women among legal persons is still very low. In the shadow of a patriarchal society, hidden gender discrimination still exists. "If you want to be an equal with us, then don't use cosmetics and nail polish." In fact, this implies a discourse interpretation right of male subject consciousness to sex, and to some extent, it should also reconcile vulgar social emotions and social prejudice. Therefore, the pressure for female lawyers to remain neutral is enormous. Laws should not be divided into genders, and women's gender should not be particularly emphasized in judicial activities, because laws are unified, and beliefs, loyalty, professional ethics and technology used in legal profession are unified. The results of judicial proceedings need to be measured and evaluated by the same standards, and cannot be different because of gender differences. In this sense, women should follow the same professional access standards and have the same professional qualities as men in judicial actions. Moreover, the legal profession has always demanded that everything should be placed under the big standards of the law. The law is neutral, neutral or universal. Generally speaking, no specific gender should be considered. A basic idea of modern society is individualism, and the law should recognize and attach importance to the differences between men and women, and pursue equality between men and women on this basis. The slogan of modern feminism is "men are people and women are people", while the slogan of modern feminism is "women are not only people, but also women". Women have the right to be human beings. As women's rights, such rights include at least three levels: women's rights, women's legal rights and women's rights in real life. Women themselves should look at themselves more accurately and admit their gender and differences with men. The equality pursued by law is not that everyone is equal as a human being. If the implicit discrimination brought by the gender inequality law that appears as "neutrality" continues to exist, it will be difficult to truly realize social justice. In the end, Irene was respected and rediscovered her own value. However, how many women have the courage like Irene to fight for the opportunity to speak for themselves? In recent years, after more and more women enter the legal profession, the differences in clothes and hairstyles are getting bigger and bigger, which reflects that women's confidence in themselves is increasing. But every cross-border progress may cause resistance or resistance. The implementation of any law is a process that requires the efforts of all parties, and of course, the efforts of every right subject.