MagICally Female: The Portrayal of Womanhood in Grey's Anatomy
An essay comparing my favorite reading(s) from this semester and one of my favorite shows.
Giving The People What They Want:
Shonda Rhimes has created many shows worth obsessing over including Scandal, How to Get Away with Murder, Bridgerton and of course, her longest running series: Grey’s Anatomy. She knows what viewers expect to see from the characters whose lives they tune in to witness every week, and now with the use of streaming services, every day. Grey’s Anatomy is a show about the intricate and drama-filled lives of surgeons working at a nationally renowned hospital in Seattle, Washington. Rhimes gives the world what they are looking for in the women of MAGIC: Meredith Grey, Izzy Stevens, and Cristina Yang. Three surgical interns that exemplify the complex lives of women in a male-dominated field. They suffer, thrive, and most importantly learn through their mistakes as up and coming surgeons.
The series has allowed Rhimes to create a female character that was allowed to be smart, to have goals, and to take up space. However, it is still television and Rhimes is catering to a greater audience; one that has been fed the societal concept of gender and gender roles since before they were fully functioning fetuses. Rhimes was expected to create a character that would garner love from everyone. That is exactly what she did with Meredith; conventionally pretty, intelligent, ambitious, and oh so tortured in the romance department. She is lovely and relatable; Rhimes puts a spotlight on this by adding the contrasting personalities of Izzy and Cristina who are loved for separate reasons by viewers that connect with one of their two warring identities. Meredith is for the viewers that are both. This paper explores how the role of “woman” is displayed through lives of workaholics with God-complexes and the ways it is translated to a large audience.
What is Female?
Gender roles have become a buzz word that garners the attention of individuals regardless of their stance or beliefs. The roles are fluid, and everyone can lean closer to femininity or masculinity. The gender roles that are taught to a person can dictate their behaviors and what they feel comfortable expressing. Perhaps that is a modern opinion.
In Sherry B. Ortner’s text, Is Female to Male as Nature Is to Culture? she aims to explain the reasons why women in nearly every culture around the world have been devalued or objectified. Ortner further reasons that the objectification is clearly due to the bodily processes of either gender. She states that the essences of Culture and Nature are reflected in the inherent roles of men and women. Culture is created and enacted, therefore it must have been men that thought it and constructed it. For the body of a man is unyielding, and it does not wither; this is reflected in all that they produce. The systems, beliefs, and practices present in the world are everlasting artificial products of male ingenuity.
“Thus men are identified not only with culture, in the sense of all human creativity, as opposed to nature; they are identified in particular with Culture in the old-fashioned sense of the finer and higher aspects of human thought – art, religion, law, etc.,” (Ortner, 18).
This idea is further emboldened by Ortner’s opposite explanation of women’s likeness to Nature. She assumes that because Culture is of greater importance to the development of humankind than Nature, that the latter’s closeness to perishable traits is what women worldwide have in common (Ortner, 1974). It is their uncontrollable downfall.
“In addition, women’s physiological functions have tended universally to limit her social movement, and to confine her universally to certain social contexts which in turn are seen as closer to nature. That is, not only her bodily processes, but the social situation in which her bodily processes locate her, may have that significance,” (Ortner, 16).
The plants and non-human earthly beings offer no resounding thought, instead they bring life, provisions, and then death to the table. Women’s bodies menstruate, each one the silent death of potential life. They may give birth and provide their child with the blood, sweat, tears, and breast milk their body can produce. These large contributions are of no use to the intelligent mind. Ortner argues that what is perishable will always be conquered, devalued, then cast aside.
The overarching argument presented in this essay is that Meredith, Cristina, and Izzy are embodiments of the roles that Ortner assigns to gender. These women represent female as a part of Culture, Nature, and as both (Ambiguous). Each one is so severe in their performance and clarity that it can be identified in different forms of habitus, social control, and gender performance as seen in the show.
The Habitus of Girls:
To be a girl is something precious; it is taught, learned, and practiced. Not all girls are brought up the same way. Factors such as family, socioeconomic status, culture, even religion contribute to the creation of the subconscious of women. In Outline of the Theory of Practice, Pierre Bourdieu defines the concept of habitus as “systems of durable, transposable disposition,” (Bourdieu, 175). This means that habitus is the way in which people think, feel, speak, or act. Emily Martin’s Medical Metaphors of Women’s Bodies: Menstruation and Menopause, argues that even the language used to describe the state of womanhood is perishing and dark, that this unquestioned method of speaking about the female mind and body is ingrained in society.
Every action throughout life is a buildup of other actions, it is reflective of what has been drilled into an individual’s mind and is added to further strengthen the learned behavior. For habitus to be transposable means that it can be carried out in various situations and in multiple social settings (Bourdieu, 1972). The habits, influences, and traumas from childhood become a person’s automaticity. Habitus is a physical manifestation of the state of the mind whereas the mind is the result of the body’s practices. In The Woman in the Surgeon’s Body, Joan Cassell argues that the state of habitus can serve as a bridge or mediator for the internal and external forces at play. “The habitus constructs the body: internality is externalized. At the same time, the body expresses the habitus: externality is internalized,” (Cassell, 1996). This paper encourages the connection of habitus to Ortner’s meanings of Culture and Nature. Those roles cannot be acted out without the teachings engrained in the bones and mind of one's body.
The way that Grey’s Anatomy is set up allows viewers to dissect every aspect of the characters in every episode while being able build on their story throughout multiple seasons. Consumers of the show are meant to sit there and perceive. Jocelyn Marrow studies the habitus and perceptions of families in response to female sickness and strength in her article, Feminine power or Feminine Weakness? North Indian girl’s struggles with aspirations, agency, and psychosomatic illness. Marrow offers, “Meaning does penetrate the body... the body’s symptoms also may be offered up to... resolve conflict among norms, aspirations, and cultural discourses,” (Marrow, 349). Perception is unconscious and can vary within intimate families and differ across cultures. The show is about their jobs and that job just so happens to take over their lives; so, every part of who they are is bared naked to the viewer.
Cristina is an Asian American woman who severely enforces the general stereotype of Asians as smart and hard-working as well as Ortner’s description of Culture. Cristina’s blatant refusal to have a child in the early seasons (Grey’s Anatomy, Season 1, Episode 8) and even later when pressured by her ex-husband and struggles to get his consent for an abortion (Grey’s Anatomy, Season 7, Episode 22). She is consistently made to be emotionless with patients and removed from basic womanly pleasures: emotional vulnerability, nurture, or general softness towards others. Cristina is there for the blood, gore, and violence that comes with surgery. She is there to excel and embraces attributes of Culture.
Izzy, on the other hand, grew up in a trailer park and waited tables to pay for college (Grey’s Anatomy, Season 1, Episode 8). Izzy is the “mother” of the group, her performance of womanhood in the series shows her constantly baking, giving out the baked goods, cooking thanksgiving dinner, and being excited about holidays. She modeled while in medical school and is someone who has known what it is like to go without. This helps her empathize with patients in a way that growing up with money may not allow. Izzy’s connection to Nature is seen in her constant need to give and nurture.
Meredith is a nepo baby raised by an accomplished female surgeon mom. All her intimacy or behavioral problems in the show stem from her mommy-issues. Meredith is used to being emotionally set aside by her mother and it has been shown throughout her life that her mother’s career will always come before her needs (Grey’s Anatomy, Season 2, Episode 3). In her adulthood, this translates as insecurity in relationships with men. But Meredith is different from her co-surgeons, the emotional-absence and career-ambition has turned her into a woman yearning for love, family, and belonging. Yet finds herself unable to do so and turns her attention towards furthering her career. This is what makes her so special to viewers; Meredith’s storyline is the reality of women struggling to find space in the modern world. A world where women are meant to embody nature, culture, and all that is in between.
Social Control: What to expect when you are... expected?
Along with the often-unpreventable thought and behavior, comes the awareness of the habits that are enacted. The frequency, meanings, and consequences of learned behaviors are known to women, there are unspoken social cues and often, to receive means to give. If Marcel Mauss’s The Gift, and Michel Foucault’s Discipline & Punish, are to be considered then it opens the discussion up to the ways in which people, especially women, are under the constant surveillance of society and in order to rise through the ranks of said society then they must part with a part of themselves. Panopticism is Foucault’s concept of surveillance as a means of regulation and social control. This dictation of behavior occurs constantly and is monitored and enforced by various informal and formal forms of punishment (Foucault). Because when the mind knows it is being scrutinized then it is more likely to adhere to spoken and unspoken rules of the public.
Like any civilized person, women often attempt to recover or improve from informal and formal forms of punishment. One method of doing this, as seen in Grey’s Anatomy, is the exchange of gifts or services. To gain something, be it success or forgiveness, means a debt is owed to the original giver (Mauss). Mauss insists that this exchange leads to mutual gain or contentment. However, the themes of this essay would argue that women are stuck at an impasse when found in these exchanges: they are further regulated and strung up like puppets. They are never truly benefiting but made to believe that their settlement is a gain.
While both dating and engaged to her first fiancé, Cristina struggles to play the role that society and friends expect of her. She is not feminine, pliable, or meek. She is Culture as it is represented in its firmness and position as “correct”; forever excused from the emotional vulnerability of Nature. Cristina is punished for her refusal to play into society’s want of women to be “traditional”. Her fiancé leaves her because he understands that she will never be the kind of woman he wants (Grey’s Anatomy, Season 3, Episode 25). Cristina is made for the operating room and not the kitchen. This small plotline is exhausted throughout the series; Cristina is given conditional love from men because she will never fulfill her part of the exchange. She is too like the Culture that Ortner assigns to men.
Izzy, in contrast, is too willing to give, too connected. One example of her punishment is her involvement in her patient Denny's case: her emotional tie to him, her excessive investment in a patient’s life, and eventual disruption of his treatment by pulling out his LVAD wire (Grey’s Anatomy, Season 2, Episode 26) This sort of deep care is not suitable for a rigid surgical program. Not only does it violate the laws of the hospital and the land, but it is seen as excessive and womanly; a lack of control over emotions. Izzy lost her love, the respect from her colleagues, and nearly lost her job. Her exchange of her warmth, beauty, and vulnerability warranted barely any respect and a mediocre standing amongst her peers. Rhimes, regardless of intent, shows that Izzy and Nature are not meant to be amongst Culture or its tough environment.
Meredith’s ambiguity is punished and praised depending on who benefits from her removal of either Culture or Nature. Her consequence is seen when her mother becomes lucid from Alzheimer’s and discovers that Meredith is happy, in love, and not overly entrenched in her profession. This goes against what her mother has tried to instill in her. However, Meredith’s love interest is fond of her nearness to naturistic traits. The idea that Meredith has veered away from Culture is appalling and an act that is informally punished by her mother but is rewarded by her lover (Grey’s Anatomy, Season 3, Episode 14). She is always described as a talented surgeon, though not at Cristina’s caliber. Because of her connection to both Culture and Nature, she loses her mother’s respect but gains her lover’s acceptance. She can float in the middle of Culture and Nature, somehow balancing both. Something her peers are not allowed to do.
Gender Performance: Dance, Monkey, Dance!
All that has been mentioned thus far can be a performance. The roles of Nature, Culture, and Ambiguity; habitus; the responses to social surveillance, and exchanges within relationships. It is all performative, a means of living and moving through the world. Women are always made to act happy, sad, satisfied, angry, etc. Television only furthers the stereotypes, and the roles viewers expect from the characters on screen.
Judith Butler’s Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory, simply calls gender an illusion. That gender is an accomplishment or a proof of the presence of substance (Butler, 1988). The individual and their supposed personality is only as real as the depth of their performance of it (Butler, 1988). Therefore, Ortner’s concepts of Culture and Nature are only valid if they are performed to the level that is expected from society. Those roles require a certain severity for full assignment to the person, any less and they must be Ambiguous.
Cristina does not ever become a mother, though she entertains men that need that role played. Her rejection of this is seen as a show of strength and the audience understands that surgery would always be her focus and that explains her lack of commitment to men, domesticity, and “womanhood”. Women who are told to be ladylike but still urged to be reflective of the rigidity of their profession must pretend; to be like women and like men (Cassell, 1996). Cristina’s commitment to the act places her in the thick of the action and causes her to thrive in her career. In the bomb threat episode, she was already in surgery and willing to further provide aid (Grey’s Anatomy, Season 2, Episode 16). In that same episode, Izzy is left downstairs and complains of her exclusion from the action. This is not surprising given the consistent portrayal of her mediocrity and likeness to femininity. She is made to play to role of the soft, sweet blonde and it further ties her to Ortner’s Nature.
The same bomb episode places Meredith right alongside Cristina, upstairs and facing the threat. Meredith also has a high standing because of her skills as an intern. Her part is meant to play as ambitious but still wanting to belong to womanly practices. She indulges Izzy during the holidays, (Grey’s Anatomy, Season 2, Episodes 9 and 12), and encourages others to engage in them. But her surgical skills and career goals set her apart from Izzy. Meredith, as the main character, is supposed to have what both Cristina and Izzy are missing, this allows her to perform both Culture and Nature.
Why Do People Watch?
Sex sells and feminism is subtly mocked on screen, yet the general consensus is that this is a feminist show. Why are shows like Grey’s Anatomy so widely watched? The general perception of feminine strength varies across cultures. Pop culture and television influence this by introducing western views or practices to other parts of the world. Amy Long’s Diagnosing Drama: Grey’s Anatomy, Blind Casting, and the Politics of Representation argues that the show brings an innovative approach to racial casting and is advertised to have an ethnic cast. Though not everyone is blond-haired and blue-eyed, Rhimes does accidentally assign certain ethnic peoples to roles that further perpetuate that ethnicities stereotypes (Long, 2011). Cristina, an Asian American as the robotic and emotionally detached surgical talent and Izzy, a white blonde, as the underachieving peer amongst averagely to talentedly skilled surgical interns.
Unintentionally coming to Rhimes’ defense, Cory L. Armstrong’s Media Disparity: A Gender Battleground, says that at some point the responsibility to change the narrative must shift from the producer to the viewer. Marrow says, “I propose a revision of the (common) anthropological notion of agency as the capacity of the individual to challenge or act against structural constraints,” (Marrow, 349). Rhimes does try to gain agency of the narrative, but she admittedly still forced to produce a plot that sells. Women struggling, living, and being sexual sells. The public relates to it as it glorifies what is lived by the typical woman, they see Ambiguity in themselves and in the modern woman.
Final Thoughts:
There is a quiet assumption that if women change their mind about their careers and goals, then the first place they will go is motherhood. As if it had been on their mind all along and they had tired of the role that was being played. They have returned to where they belong. It is exhausting to be a woman, who are constantly a topic of conversation and analyzed. What are women doing? Why are they doing it? How does it make everyone feel? Women deserve to just be. It feels hypocritical and counterintuitive to author a paper about the portrayal of women, dissect their inner being, scrutinize it, and then complain about other writers doing the same. But for women to be heard and considered, then they must write, analyze, complain, repeat. As every version of anything women have to offer is a valuable addition to this discourse that will never cease. For every Meredith, Izzy, and Cristina, there is a woman that is one, two, or all of them.
References
Armstrong, C L. (2013). Media Disparity : A Gender Battleground. Lexington Books.
Bourdieu, P. (1977). Outline of the Theory of Practice.
Butler, J. (1988). Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in
Phenomenology and Feminist Theory. Theatre Journal, 40, 519-531.
Cassell, J. (1996), The Woman in the Surgeon's Body: Understanding Difference.
American Anthropologist, 98: 41-53. https://doi-org.proxy.lib.ohio- state.edu/10.1525/aa.1996.98.1.02a00050
Foucault, M. (1977). Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison.
Long, A. (2011). Diagnosing Drama: Grey’s Anatomy, Blind Casting, and the Politics of
Representation. The Journal of Popular Culture, 44(5), 1067–1084. https://doi-
org.proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/10.1111/j.1540-5931.2011.00888.x
Marrow, J. (2013), Feminine power or feminine weakness? North Indian girls’ struggles
with aspirations, agency, and psychosomatic illness. American Ethnologist, 40: 347-361.
https://doi-org.proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/10.1111/amet.12026
Martin, E. (1988). “Medical Metaphors of Women’s Bodies: Menstruation and
Menopause.” International Journal of Health Services 18(2): 237-254.
Mauss, M. (1954). The Gift: Forms of Exchange in Archaic societies.
Ortner, S. B. (1974). “Is Female to Male as Nature is to Culture?”
Rhimes, S. (Writer), Rater, J. (Writer), Phelan, T. (Writer), & Corn, R. (Director). (2006,
May 15). Deterioration of the Fight or Flight Response (Season 2, Episode 26) [Grey’s
Anatomy]. Netflix.
Rhimes, S. (Writer), Rater, J. (Writer), Phelan, T. (Writer), & Corn, R. (Director). (2007,
May 17). Didn’t We Almost Have It All? (Season 3, Episode 25). [Grey’s Anatomy].
Netflix.
Rhimes, S. (Writer), Vernoff, K. (Writer), & Horton, P. (Director). (2005, December 11).
Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer (Season 2, Episode 12) [Grey’s Anatomy].
Netflix.
Rhimes, S. (Writer), Clack, Z. (Writer), McKee, S. (Writer), & Horton, P. (Director).
(2006, February 5). It’s the End of the World (Season 2, Episode 16) [Grey’s Anatomy]. Netflix.
Rhimes, S. (Writer), Vernoff, K. (Writer), & Davidson, A. (Director). (2005, October 9). Make Me Lose Control (Season 2, Episode 3) [Grey’s Anatomy]. Netflix.
Rhimes, S. (Writer), Schmir, M. (Writer), & Anderson, S (Director). (2005, May 15). Save Me (Season 1, Episode 8) [Grey’s Anatomy]. Netflix.
Rhimes, S. (Writer), & Dinner, M. (Director). (2005, November 20). Thanks for the Memories (Season 2, Episode 9) [Grey’s Anatomy]. Netflix.
Rhimes, S. (Writer), Cahn, D. (Writer), & Corn, R. (Director). (2011, May 19). Unaccompanied Minor (Season 7, Episode 22) [Grey’s Anatomy]. Netflix.
Rhimes, S. (Writer), Rater, J. (Writer), Phelan, T. (Writer), & Robinson, J. A. (Director). (2007, February 1). Wishin’ and Hopin’ (Season 3, Episode 14) [Grey’s Anatomy]. Netflix.