The official culture is what people actually practice. The unofficial culture is what people practice, but they just don't really say. Just because the official culture says that people do one thing, doesn't mean we should look at the unofficial culture, because it too can play a part as to how people act. .
In the first movie we watched called Sense and Sensibility, these women were neither dominated nor exploited. They may have had an unfair advantage to some things, but not dominated or exploited. At the beginning of the movie, Emma Thompson and her two sisters have to move out of their house because the oldest son gets the house and money when the father dies. Some people would probably claim that those women were being exploited at that point, but they weren't. In 18th century England, that is they way that inheritance worked, and it was even by law that money followed the oldest son, and that is the way they believed back then. Later on in the movie, Emma Thompson's character meets Hugh Grant. They both fall in love with each other and when Emma Thompson moves, Hugh Grant says he will visit, but never does. She then finds out that he is engaged to be married to someone else. Because men had a lot of honor and they kept their promises, he wouldn't break it off with the girl he was already engaged to. Also Emma Thompson's younger sister, who was played by Kate Winslet, fell in love with a man who helped her when she fell. They spent a lot of time together, and he fell in love with her too, but because they didn't have much money, the man's mother would let him marry her. Those are two examples of how men were being dominated and held back. Men were also held back from expressing their true emotions. .
In the book Nisa, by Marjorie Shostak, there are many examples how women have a lot of control over what is happening. Shostak is says in the book that women's status in the community is high and their influence considerable.
