dracula podcast

In this podcast episode, the host discusses gender roles in Bram Stoker's novel "Dracula" and its film adaptation. They highlight how gender roles are challenged and flipped in the novel, using examples of Mina being pushed aside and women being used as objects by Dracula. They draw parallels to modern society, where women still struggle to receive recognition for their work and have their autonomy respected. The host also mentions the portrayal of women in the film, connecting it to discussions on rape culture. Lastly, they discuss how Mina's desire to be modern is viewed as having a "man's brain" and how society still prefers male opinions and intelligence. The podcast concludes by questioning the extent to which modern society has truly progressed in terms of gender equality. Hello everybody and welcome back to my podcast. I hope you were all having a lovely day enjoying this beautiful weather. So today I'm going to be talking about gender roles in Dracula by Bram Stoker and I'm also going to be bringing in a couple connections to the film Bram Stoker's Dracula which is a very interesting adaptation of the book and definitely takes some creative liberties. So today I'm going to talk about how there are so many times throughout this wonderful novel that gender roles are just created but they're also really torn down throughout this novel and sometimes even flipped on their head. So as a modern society we believe that gender roles are kind of obsolete to us. That's something of the past. We're very modern. Women are working now. People are demonstrating at home. We have all of this integration among the typical gender roles but this novel really forces people and the readers to think what gender roles do you find yourself trapped in even in our so-called modern society and are even perpetrating upon others through your subconscious actions. So my first example that I'm going to bring up today is from the novel when Mina is being pushed to the sidelines and despite her work and trying very hard to do all this research and working hard for these men she is just not allowed to participate in the actual hunting and the actions of this band of men and she is pushed aside and her work is kind of being taken from her. So this is a very modern concept because even today a lot of women are forced to have men take credit for their actions and aren't really allowed to have their name being placed on actions and in a article written by the Harvard Business Review it states that even today women are not able to get the credit for their group work and despite doing the same amount of work as men that participate in the group they are just not able to do it even in higher levels of academia like in college and when you're working on your theses and you are working in a group people are just not women are not getting the recognition that the men are getting for these thesis despite probably putting in the same amount of work and this even goes up to the level of the work level positions in academia where women are tenured at much lower rates despite doing the same amount of work and the same amount of research this is just a concept that is perpetrated where women are not given the amount of recognition that men are given for the same amount of work or even sometimes more work they are really pushed to the sidelines and pushed into a position that they may not want to be in and this concept is timeless and Bram Stoker brings this up in Mina's situation and it is very relevant to the struggle for women to get recognition for what they work on even to the same. So another example in the novel and then I'm going to bring in some film examples in this one is women are being used as objects. They are objects for Dracula to attack these men and get at these men because they're a weak spot. Lucy specifically during her stay in the hospital when Dracula is drinking her blood the men are trying so hard to keep her alive they are providing her with blood transfusions it's like they're just chomping at the bit to give her blood transfusions if they want to help her so badly and they're just jumping and jumping to help her and she is just helpless she is unable to be helped because Dracula has this power over them in which he's acting upon Lucy with no consent whatsoever is completely stripping her of her autonomy and is just acting on her and putting the men in this helpless position that women are often found in where they are completely helpless and are not able to be saved and it's a very interesting setup because it in my mind connects to the fight for abortion and how the bodily autonomy of women is still being disrespected to this day and how men are fighting to take away women's reproductive rights and want to have a control over women and women are honestly being ignored in this argument and not are not often involved in the decision-making and in the film the women are portrayed very differently Lucy is no longer this innocent sweet character she's aggressive she is very violent she is just a very different character and in the book movie also Nina is almost this like character that is very seductive and she attempts to when she's getting Dracula to give her him his blood she's begging for this action she's begging for this and if you've seen the film you've seen how sexual that scene truly is and how Nina is really wants Dracula to participate in this very sexual act with her and it really connects to the discussions on rape culture presently about how men think women are asking for it if they're wearing a certain type of clothing if they're walking a certain way if they're talking a certain way if they're doing really pretty much anything through their actions their clothing their presentation women are very much asking for it in a lot of rape culture arguments and this is just such a timeless concept because the men in this book make Nina seem like she is asking for Dracula to commit this very sexual act with her so my last example is all about Nina it's about her reasons for wanting to be modern and she is doing all of this modern research and she's trying all this stuff in order to be closer to her fiance soon-to-be husband and she does all this modern stuff such as journaling and researching in order to be closer to her husband and in the novel she is portrayed as having a quote man's brain which brings into thought that a woman is not allowed to do this amount of research and be very passionate about something like this without being manly in some sort of way she's not able to just be a woman a woman would not be able to complete this outrageous act of being of being intelligent and doing all of this incredibly helpful stuff so this is really interesting because they only can respect her work if they view it through a man's brain and this brings into thought a really interesting study I read from the National Library of Medicine in which they state that people generally prefer a male doctor and trust their opinion more than they trust the opinion of a female doctor the numbers are around 42% of patients are preferring that a male doctor would attend to them versus 11% prefer a female doctor so this really desire for a male ideal and a male intelligence is still a very present idea to this day and kind of just to wrap up today I think it really this novel begs the question why do we believe that this was such a backwards way of thinking and I'm not modern and we're so past this and kind of superiority almost that comes with living in 2023 we are honestly not that different from a lot of Victorian ideals and Victorian societies in that we treat women in a very demeaning way at times in which we put a lot of blame on them and don't really give them a ton of recognition so the novel really makes you question how modern is our society truly if we are not able to provide women with recognition for their actions and we are not treating them with kindness and fairness so I hope you all enjoyed my commentary on gender roles in Dracula by Bram Stoker if you want to watch almost laughable adaptation of this very interesting novel you can go and watch Bram Stoker's Dracula but I suggest that you read the book and really read between the lines in order to see this commentary on gender roles