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Gender and power are very influential in Alice’s, and every person’s, life and are also inextricably linked. One aspect of gender is the power struggle between genders and the power struggle that occurs within genders due to the existence of the opposite gender. At Alice’s age, on the cusp of puberty, she is beginning to be aware of these conflicts resulting from the power given to the importance of gender and gender roles. She is beginning to see men in a new way and interpret their actions differently. She is becoming aware of her sexuality and is caught in an awkward time between childhood and womanhood. Alice sees the differences in power assigned to genders through her neighbor, who is a wreck after her boyfriend leaves her. Her neighbor views men as having all the power and women needing to be beautiful and sexually desirable to men in order to succeed in life. These concepts are confusing to Alice who also sees her mother as a capable single mother but who is obviously struggling.
Alice encounters frustrations about lack of self-expression when power is taken away from her from various people in her life. She is outraged when her mother pointedly treats her like a child because she believes she should have the power to do what she wants and does not need to help out around the house. She doubts her ability to express herself when, after her neighbor dresses her up, she is walking down the street and gets looks from men that she has not encountered before. They make her unsure of what sort of power she wields and unsure of how the world sees her. Power is further taken from Alice when the girls at school are mean to her and her best friend ditches her for “Becca�. All of these frustrations result from a difference in the way others perceive Alice’s power to the way she perceives her own power and ability. The film hits the nail on the head in examining this difficult age, which is highly influential in shaping a person’s view of themselves and the world especially in terms of their gender.