Patriarcal Analysis of The Movie: Mahanagar

PATRIARCHAL ANALYSIS OF THE MOVIE: MAHANAGAR
Submitted by: SUMAN SAURABH, 5-C

Reading Chosen: Excerpts from “Some Conceptual Problems in Marxist
Feminist Analysis”- Michele Barrett
Movie Chosen: Mahanagar- Satyajit Ray
Summary: Some Conceptual Problems in Marxist Feminist

Analysis
The author opens up with the sentence “it is relatively easy to
demonstrate that women are oppressed in Britain, as in other
contemporary capitalist societies, but more contentious to speak of a
“Marxist Feminist” analysis of the oppression”. At the very beginning of
the chapter, she introduces the readers to the stigma and controversy
associated with “Marxist Feminism”. She writes that attempts have been
made to produce a theoretical perspective that might be termed Marxist
Feminist, but the work done till now remains fragmentary and
contradictory.
To understand the analysis of Marxist Feminism she defines the term by
treating them as two subjects. Marxism being a contradiction between
capitalism and the labour class exploitation and Feminism, largely
speaking for the oppression of women. Marxism lacks at including
gender in the contradiction of classes and hence can be considered as
“sex-blind” and Feminism does not take into account the oppression of
women as a part of labour class exploitation. To summarize, Marxist
Feminism combined together emphasizes the gender relations and the
oppression of women in a capitalist society.
In order to approach the analysis of Marxist Feminism, she has
developed a theoretical framework. The framework consists of an
analysis of three important concepts that have been crucial in the debate
of the above subject. The three concepts are Patriarchy, Reproduction
and Ideology. These concepts are then analysed in separate headings,
the excerpt only contains the analysis of Marxist Feminism using
patriarchy. The Patriarchal analysis has been drawn primarily from
radical feminist writings.
The author states that the “concept of patriarchy is a crucial one to begin
with”. To get a better idea of the political and theoretical force of
patriarchy she analyses the context in which the concept has been used.
Context 1- Father figure domination- Max Weber- “a particular form of
household organization in which the father dominated other members of
an extended kinship network and controlled the economic production of
the household”.
Context 2- Patriarchy as an over-arching category of male dominance-
Kate Millet- “groups who rule by birth-right are fast disappearing, yet
there remains one ancient and universal scheme for the domination of
one birth by another- the scheme that prevails in the area of sex”. Here,
Millet implies that the class divisions are relevant only to men and she
denies that significant class differences exist between women.
Context 3- Analytic primacy and independence to Male domination-
Shulimath Firestone- “revolutionizing of reproductive technologies in
order to free women from the burden of their biologically determined
oppression”. Patriarchy that stresses male supremacy as male control
over women’s fertility, without the consideration as to why and how men
acquired this control.
Context 4- Materialistic analysis of women’s oppression- Christine

Delphy- “women’s class position should be understood in terms of the
institution of marriage, a labour contract in which the husband’s
appropriation of unpaid labour from his wife constitutes a domestic mode
of production and a patriarchal mode of exploitation”. Here she presents
the idea that women’s oppression lies not in capitalist but in patriarchal
relations of production.
After the analysis of use of the patriarchy in various contexts the author
concludes that the ideology patriarchy can only be used to analyse
Marxist Feminism while describing the specific aspects of the male-
female relations in capitalism, but when used universally it “presents
insuperable difficulties to an analysis that attempts to relate women’s
oppression to the relations of production of capitalism.”
Summary: Mahanagar
The locale of the movie is Calcutta in the 1950s. The movie begins with
the scene of the iconic and traditional tram’s pantograph and in the
opening scene a Subrata, the breadwinner of a family of five is seen
getting off the tram and entering his small household. The initial
moments in the movie sets the narrative of a middle class orthodox
family with a grandfather who used to be a teacher and uses his pupils to
get his homely jobs done, two kids, a daughter and son, and the daughter
is questioned for her interest in studies and is confronted with the fact
that this education is useless for her as her job is just to get married and
go to her husband’s home and live as a house-wife and lastly the
housewife, Arati.
The story is based on evolving independence of Arati, as she has to start
working in order to support her financially insecure family. Despite the
disapproval from her father-in-law, she gets a job as a saleswoman and
slowly starts prospering and enjoying the financial independence.
Later Subrata asks her to quit her job as he had secured another part-
time job, but soon he loses his full-time job at the bank after the market
crash in Calcutta and is forced to ask his wife to keep working. Arati
becomes the breadwinner of the family and continues to prosper at her
job. Soon she makes a friend at her job, Edith. After looking at her
efficiency at work, her boss promises to promote her if she kept working
efficiently.
Subrata used to spend his time at home feeling insecure and suspicious.
One day he decides to go and meet Subrata’s boss at work. He finds out
that her boss is a wise and friendly person and discusses his
unemployment with him. Later Edith who had been absent from work
due to illness for a long time returns to her workplace and her boss fires
her as he thinks she was lying.
Later, Edith confides to Arati about the firing after she found her crying.
Arati is enraged by this behaviour of her boss and resigns from her job
despite being the breadwinner of her family.
On her way out of the office, she meets Subrata. She apologizes to him
for impulsively quitting her job, and admitted that she was scared for
their future. Subrata realizes that his wife has shown courage rather
than meekly submitting to her boss to sustain her livelihood. He tells her
that he believes some day they both will get jobs to support their family.
Analysis of the movie

Patriarchy as an ideology is evident since the beginning of the opening
scene where one Subrata’s father Priyogopal is sitting in the living room
and is introduced as the head of the family and can be related with
Context 1 of the patriarchy contexts mentioned in Michelle Barrett’s
excerpt. Later in the scene Subrata is introduced as the breadwinner of
the family and is welcomed with a tea which the family could not afford
and his wife Arati had to borrow it from their neighbours. Subrata drinks
the tea and without any consideration for Arati’s feeling says that the tea
was not even good. He also questions his daughter for her interest in
studies. All these above traits categorize this form of patriarchy with
Context-4.
Other situations in which patriarchy is evident during the movie is firstly
the disapproval of Priyogopal when Arati plans to start working as a
saleswoman, secondly, Subrata takes a part-time job over his full-time job
and asks Arati to quit her job.
How does the study of Gender, Space and Film help us become
better architects/ designers?
The study of gender inequalities and biases through readings and films
help us become aware of the issue that is almost never discussed during
the entire course of architecture. It helps us in being aware of the gender
biases and inequalities and from the initiation of a design process it helps
us design better, a team that has an equal ratio of male to female, a team
that is aware of the gender biases and framework. All these decisions
lead us towards the issues that have never been looked upon in the past.
For eg. Special consideration for gender-specific perspectives while
working on an urban project, Gender-specific observations and needs,
making sure that all jobs are gender neutral on site during project
management are some examples on how the study of Gender inequalities
and bias can transform the way we design.
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PATRIARCHAL ANALYSIS OF THE MOVIE: MAHANAGAR

Submitted by: SUMAN SAURABH, 5-C

Summary: Some Conceptual Problems in Marxist Feminist

Context 4- Materialistic analysis of women’s oppression- Christine

Analysis of the movie

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