Home as a Instrument of Power: “Masculine Domination” and “Other Woman” in the What Remains and Fatal Attraction

Abstract

In this study, experiences of women related to home space in What Remains (Çiğdem Vitrinel, 2011) and Fatal Attraction (Adrian Lyne, 1987) are evaluated on the basis of Pierre Bourdieu’s “masculine domination” concept, using feminist critical discourse analysis. Bourdieu examines the symbolic reflections of two gendered fields, masculine and feminine, in the power relations in the study of Masculine Domination (1998). The women reproduce internalized gender practices with domestic routine in family institution. In both films, the home is a sign of symbolic violence, hence these two films are close together in this study. Although women have different interests, lifestyles, or experience the home space in different ways, the home space remains a fixed place that reinforces masculine domination. In this context, the home space that turns into an extension of the female body discloses the class differences between women. The home space produces an asymmetric class position among women and their bodies are “disciplined” according to this position. In the representations, the relation between women who are opponents to each other damages, so the possibility of reconstructing their relationship seems possible by questioning symbolic domination.