Clarice Starling, the lead character in The Silence of the Lambs, is a woman working in a sexist and heavily male-dominated context. She is one of only a handful female agents in training at Quantico, and strangers constantly remind her that her gender does not match her occupation. Early in the novel, Starling takes a trip with Jack Crawford, a higher-up at the FBI, to examine the body of one of Buffalo Bill’s victims. Quickly, Starling realizes that the local law enforcement—all of whom are men—have no respect for her. To make matters worse, Crawford makes a sexist comment about Starling in front of the other officers. Crawford does not mean what he says—he only uses the remark to get one of the officers alone. However, as Starling tells Crawford later, everything he says matters because the other officers look up to him and use him as a model for their behavior. Indeed, nearly everywhere Starling goes, someone remarks on her gender. Men such as Dr. Chilton and Pilcher flirt with Starling when they are supposed to be engaging with her as a fellow professional. Chilton is particularly heinous because he makes it his life’s goal to make Starling’s investigation difficult because she spurned his advances.
Many of the men throughout the novel treat Starling as though her gender is detrimental to the case she is pursuing. However, throughout the novel, it becomes increasingly clear that the exact opposite is true. For instance, Clarice’s gender is the only reason Hannibal Lecter is willing to talk to her in the first place. Additionally, her knowledge of stereotypically feminine skills and subjects, such as sewing and clothing sizes, helps her piece together Buffalo Bill’s identity and motivation. By showing the many hurdles that Clarice has to jump through in order to simply do her job, then, the novel takes a critical look at the outdated and sexist mindsets that not only inhibit individual women in the workforce but also hold back entire fields.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Sexism and Law Enforcement ThemeTracker
Sexism and Law Enforcement Quotes in The Silence of the Lambs
Paperwork. Clarice Starling’s self-interest snuffled ahead like a keen beagle. She smelled a job offer coming—probably the drudgery of feeding raw data into a new computer system. It was tempting to get into Behavioral Science in any capacity she could, but she knew what happens to a woman if she’s ever pegged as a secretary—it sticks until the end of time. A choice was coming, and she wanted to choose well.
You’d like to quantify me, Officer Starling. You’re so ambitious, aren’t you? Do you know what you look like to me, with your good bag and your cheap shoes? You look like a rube. You’re a well-scrubbed, hustling rube with a little taste. Your eyes are like cheap birthstones—all surface shine when you stalk some little answer. And you’re bright behind them, aren’t you? Desperate not to be like your mother. Good nutrition has given you some length of bone, but you’re not more than one generation out of the mines, Officer Starling. Is it the West Virginia Starlings or the Okie Starlings, Officer? It was a toss-up between college and the opportunities in the Women’s Army Corps, wasn’t it? Let me tell you something specific about yourself, Student Starling. Back in your room, you have a string of gold add-a-beads and you feel an ugly little thump when you look at how tacky they are now, isn’t that so? All those tedious thank-yous, permitting all that sincere fumbling, getting all sticky once for every bead. Tedious. Tedious. Bo-o-o-o-r-i-ing. Being smart spoils a lot of things, doesn’t it?
“Sheriff, this kind of a sex crime has some aspects that I’d rather say to you just between us men, you understand what I mean?” Crawford said, indicating Starling’s presence with a small movement. of his head. He hustled the smaller man into a cluttered office off the hall and closed the door. Starling was left to mask her umbrage before the gaggle of deputies. Her teeth hard together, she gazed on Saint Cecilia and returned the saint’s ethereal smile while eavesdropping through the door. She could hear raised voices, then scraps of a telephone conversation.
“He covets. In fact, he covets being the very thing you are. It’s his nature to covet. How do we begin to covet, Clarice? Do we seek out things to covet? Make an effort at an answer.”
“No. We just—”
“No. Precisely so. We begin by coveting what we see every day. Don’t you feel eyes moving over you every day, Clarice, in chance encounters? I hardly see how you could not. And don’t your eyes move over things?”
I’m as good as anybody you’ve got at the cop stuff, better at some things. The victims are all women and there aren’t any women working this. I can walk in a woman’s room and know three times as much about her as a man would know, and you know that’s a fact.
From Dr. Frederick Chilton, the National Tattler bought the tapes of Starling’s interview with Dr. Hannibal Lecter. The Tattler expanded on their conversations for their “Bride of Dracula” series and implied that Starling had made frank sexual revelations to Lecter in exchange for information, spurring an offer to Starling from Velvet Talks: The Journal of Telephone Sex.
