Gender and Education: 'Educating Rita' and the Struggle for Voice.

An examination of the film, "Educating Rita," explores the effects of power respective to particular gender categories and suggests ways that the film becomes a case study in gender and education. The film is about a woman, Rita, who wants the ability to have choices in her life, pursues an education as the key to providing choices, and develops a relationship with a male professor, Frank. Several questions present invitations to look beneath the surface of the text of the film to the nature of gendered roles in the movie, the effects of relations of power, and how those roles and effects of power tend to impact both Rita's and Frank's struggle for voice. The representations of literature in the film make a strong connection to masculine authoritative words and suggest the interrogation of voice with respect to gender. The authoritative language and the lived experiences of the characters in the film seem related inextricably to the struggle for voice and to the historic way that women's voices and knowledge have been positioned as other than authoritative. Includes end notes. (CK)