Introduction
This story about a woman who falls out of the usual script is a demonstration of individual autonomy and a determination to break out of the stereotypes that can imprison ones thoughts into submission. The title of this mystery thriller is a reference to the lead character; Lisbeth Salander an accomplished investigator and an intelligent computer hacker. This is despite the fact that she has been declared mentally incompetent and assigned state legal guardianship.
Her last guardian suffers stroke and the state assigns her a new guardian; Nils Bjurman who is a local lawyer, to be in charge of her financial disposition. But despite this position of trust, Nils manipulates her for sexual favors and finally rapes her in the most bizarre manner, unbeknown to him, Salander had been anticipating all these and had a video camera positioned somewhere in the room to record his heinous act. She plans to use the resultant video as a tool for her own liberation from the states control. She blackmails him into writing a good progress report and allows her control of her money.
What would be so striking to any audience is how calmly she takes Nils abuses. She is far removed from the typical woman who would find such utmost violation a tool for liberation. She finds a way to dish her own ‘just desert’ to her aggressor without necessarily turning to the state as the fundamental enforcer of justice. Whether this is a demonstration of her own lack of faith in state institutions is not crystal clear, however the ease by which she kills the main protagonist at the end of the film hints to the notion that justice is best served on the spot. But on the contrary, the expertise by which she is able to analyze, investigate past and present criminal conducts shows a persons who is fully aware of the machination of the powerful people in the society, and more specifically the domineering tendency of men.
Rape in its modern-day definition would envision both men and women as equal victims and equal perpetrators, but notwithstanding such clarity, of the law, women still undoubtedly find themselves as the tilters of the scale. This has allowed the victim to the persistently ‘woman’ as the general rule, and the male victim to be the exception. The conflation between rape, domestic violence, sexual harassment and other gender-based crimes follows the same script; that women are vulnerable and men are stronger and menacing, able to have their way with the women on a whimsical urge. So ingrained is this belief that the laws as crafted always envision women as the more vulnerable victim in need of ‘protection’.
Feminist theorist, like, Sharon Marcus find their basis on the view that the society is inherently patriarchal with men viewing women as second-class citizens or subordinates to the men. Radical feminists believe that the domination of men over is the worst form of oppression that knows no class boundaries, racial lines and cultural beliefs. However, liberal feminists have a more open-minded view that women are equally to blame for their own oppression due to the way males and females are socialized within the family and the society. This patriarchal view is so ingrained that that when a rape case is to be heard in court, the absence of consent remains a significant element. This hints on the subordination aspect as the laws also give a constructive approach to the burden of proof. In this respect, Brownmiller believes that rape is about power as a means to subjugation; something that most women do not exhibit over men.
Nonetheless, according to Catherine MacKinnon, women have been so used to saying yes to men due to the perpetual oppression that rape that rape has become hard to clearly define, sometimes leading to the gray areas of uncertainty of consent or lack of it. She argues that to some women, it gets to a point where they cannot discern whether they have been raped or not; she is so used to doing what men want so that she can a quiet life.
Conclusion
But our heroine does not seem to conform to this published script. While she comes face to face with the other challenges that women endure in almost equal measure, her ability to confront them without resorting to whines, hues and cries posit an empowered woman able to take on her adversary by the horn. Marcus, rightly suggests that whilst the family, the society, and corporation will subjugate women, Lisbeth remains unexamined in this respect. The story in this film ends with a conclusive solving of a decade long murder and disappearance of some women, one having escaped a potential subjugation from a man. It makes one wonder what Lisbeth thinks of these women who she has to ‘rescue’ by solving the mystery of disappearance and branding Nils a rapist. Does she think of them as week? Does she ask herself why they cannot be like her?
Works Cited
Brown, Wendy. "Finding the Man in the State." Feminist Studies (1992): 7-34.
Marcus, Sharon. Fighting Bodies. Fighting Words: A theory and Politics of Rape Prevention. Illustrated. New York: Routledge, 2002.
Rubin, Gayle. "Thinking Sex." Toward an Anthropology of Women (1984).
