A Dangerous Woman

I was quite intrigued by the piece on Brigitte Bardot, the Femme fatale of the last century. It was interesting to read more into how she was portrayed in film as seductresses bent on destroying the lives of the men around her, luring them in and breaking them down. Bardot was never one to play a typical loving housewife loyal to one man, but jumped between lovers to get what she wanted while she left a trail of broken hearts in her wake, and I found it odd to read about how women were portrayed to have so much power in only so far as they could tempt men with their looks. It was as the devil had tempted Eve to sin with the idea of getting something so beautiful but forbidden by eating the apple. It made me wonder how this idea of women as devilish and selfish came around, as if men were trying to give women power but in such a way that they seemed dangerous with it. I believe that sexualizing women to have a lustful control makes them weaker, because it gives others a reason to dominate the woman and lash out when the woman acts in this sexual way. Of course, a submissive wife loyal only to the husband and the house is no better because then she has no control over herself at all, but neither portrayals really makes a woman "fatal" at all. They are all just playthings molded to appeal to the desires of a man and nothing more.