Like Ava mentioned in her post, the women in the film play an interesting role. I was focused on Pat Green, and how Turing seemed to look down on her, especially in the scene where he explains Fibonacci’s sequence to her as well as when they meet after he was sentenced. Here, he says he should have married Pat even though he is gay, in an attempt to conform to society’s wishes. But this attitude completely dismisses Pat and her feelings and what Turing would have put her through if they had married. I wonder if this is because he feels more like a parent in regards to her, a vibe which I got when he was teaching her about Fibonacci, or if it is because the writer simply wanted to showcase Turing’s superior intelligence, even if it meant patronizing Pat’s character.
The second interesting thing I noted in this scene is Turing’s punishment. He is taking estrogen, giving him breasts and “turning” him into a woman. This is more evidence for Ava’s argument that Pat Green and Alan Turing had similar character arcs – both become more feminized and lose their autonomy as soon as they openly love a man.
A teacher of mine in high school once tried to explain second wave feminism by saying that women believed they could achieve equality by becoming as similar to men as possible. She added that many women had issues being romantically involved with men, as this showed weakness. Pat’s development in this film seems to support that theory. When she works with Turing, she is not particularly masculine or feminine, but she is clearly intelligent and competent. As soon as she shows feminine coded emotion, she is patronized and relegated to housework. I wonder if this simply shows how limited options were for women after the war effort; maybe Pat would not be able to find another job in her area of expertise as a woman outside of Bletchley.
