Know your role....or not....

Avatar dichotomizes sex and dichotomizes gender from one world, which is real life, and from Pandora, the virtual.
In the real world, it showcases the men as the prominent sex. This is mainly because the majority of them are soldiers. They throw their machismo around, they show they are in charge, with a take no prisoner attitude. It’s all about fighting, shooting, blowing things up, keeping their eye on the prize, and more or less, conquering. The role Sigourney Weaver plays in the real world is a scientist whose role is of less importance to that of her male superior, even though without her they would not be able to access or habitat Pandora, but is still a tough, semi-crude lady.
In the virtual, or Pandora, the woman actually hold all the great roles within their culture/people. The woman role varies from one being a shaman of her clan, one being the daughter of the shaman, as well as the God they pray to, is a she (Wilson). Even Sigourney’s role in Pandora turns more motherly and nurturing.

Wilson, Tracy V. "Is James Cameron's 'Avatar' sexist?." HowStuffWorks. HowStuffWorks, Inc., 12/17/2009Web. 1 Oct 2010. .

Avatar reflects Stone’s idea about cyborg envy because of the longing of the male for the female (Stone, 450). In Avatar Jake in the virtual world of Pandora falls in love. He attaches himself to a female who saves his life and she shows him the ways of the Navvi. What isn’t desirable about being a cyborg? It is a way to be able to use it as a means to escape your everyday existence. It’s a way to detach you from you, who everybody always sees you at, or knows you by. Stone states that penetrating the screen involves a state change from the physical, biological space of the embodied viewer to the symbolic, metaphorical ‘consensual hallucination’ of cyberspace; a space that is a locus of intense desire for refigured embodiment. In Avatar, Jake is able to free himself of his disability and is able to walk and run in the virtual. He became an extension of his real self, but in a way, euphorically became better. In order to enter cyberspace is to physically put on cyberspace (Stone, 450). Jake had to physically become one with the Avatar, he had to relearn how to use the body, how to learn the language, the ways of the people, how to physically interact with his surroundings.

Stone, Allucquere Rosanne. "Will The Real Body Please Stand UP?." The Cybercultures reader. Ed. David Bell and Barbara M. Kennedy. New York: Routledge, 2000. Print.