Androgynous being (female): An Ideal Victim, a Resistive Tool or None?

Abstract

The concept of androgyny gave rise to a new critical debate in the domain of contemporary feminist criticism. It questions the authenticity and absoluteness of sex difference as determined by the society. A number of theorists celebrate it as a resistive tool against the culturally and socially approved gender roles, which provide women with a space and opportunity to explore their lives free from the socially restrained boundaries irrespective of their sexual orientation.

The paper, through an analysis of Lisbeth Salander’s character in the movie The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, seeks to evaluate the status of an androgynous being (female) as ‘an ideal victim’ as proposed by Nils Christie, in order to identify how far an androgynous being can be successful in escaping the power structures and value systems of patriarchal society. The study challenges Bem’s claims that androgynes, compared with sex-typed persons, display greater sex-role flexibility, have higher self-esteem, and function more effectively at home and at work by creating a synapse between Bem’s idea of powerful androgynous beings and Nils Christie’s concept of ideal victim.

While a lot of research can be found on the significance of adopting an androgynous identity, I propose to intervene in the existing research by proposing that adoption of an androgynous identity puts the androgynous woman, as in the case of the selected movie, in a doubly disadvantageous position where she is neither able to transcend completely the culturally sanctioned gender binaries, nor does she fit in the criteria of an ideal victim as proposed by Nils Christie, which results in her failure to receive empathy and sympathy from others around her.