Women Don’t Speak

In the much beloved series Fleabag, among the many ingenious portrayals of vulnerability, I am most attracted to the allegory of “women don’t speak”. While drafting the thick passages of silencing, I seek fun at Fleabag. The intense construction and deconstruction and reconstruction of theories are overshadowed by such creative observation of daily life. I try every ounce of energy understanding the speech acts under the Austinian framework. I think I get it. Can I put it into common language? Not sure. Initially I was curious about the concept of silencing. Austin’s coinage of illocution, yet, agonizes my process of writing. Illocution certainly complicates everything. What does it mean when we apply it to feminist philosophy?

Phoebe Waller-Bridge captures silencing of women in Fleabag S1E4. Fleabag and her sister Claire attend an all-female workshop named “women don’t speak” under the voucher of their uncommunicative dad. In the workshop, the sisters encounter a bald Buddhist and a Karen-like hostess. The sisters are assigned houseworks such as cleaning and mopping. The one rule that they are required to obey is, they are not allowed to make any sound, thereby the title of the workshop “women don’t speak.” They have to internalize the rule by practicing ritualistic meditation, where they learn to swallow their feelings without leaking them out by words. They have to remain absolutely silent.

What makes this episode extremely interesting is the contrast setting. Across the “women don’t speak” workshop, Fleabag accidentally discovers an all-male workshop that reeducates male sexual assaulters. Most males there, presumably, have touched a colleague’s breast or something. The bank manager is one of them. Those males are fired as punishment for their inappropriate behaviors. However, they are not happy about the decisions. The way they unleash their dissatisfaction is to vent on dolls with the names of their supposedly female colleagues. They shout at the dolls, physically attack them, and eventually burn them in the field. They also practice the more “appropriate” comments over females’ achievements.

Source: IMDB

This is a very under-explored episode!