Myth, Money, Misogyny: Netflix's 'Sirens' Is the Uncomfortable Mirror We Need

By Ayesha Parikh

When sirens stop singing and start screaming back. Netflix's latest dissects the cost of being a woman in a world built by men.

The new Netflix mini series Sirens (2025) - adapted from the play Elemeno Pea by Molly Smith Metzler, throws three women together for one explosive weekend at a billionaire's beachfront estate. What starts as your typical rich-people-behaving-badly show quickly becomes something much more uncomfortable to watch—and that's exactly the point.

This  class-clash comedy  about estranged sisters slowly unravels into a searing commentary on  gender, power, and the politics of survival. At its heart, Sirens is about the impossible balancing act women must perform: navigating systems  that were never designed to protect them while confronting the brutal reality of female ambition under patriarchy.

She Can Scream, But Only If It Sounds Polite

The series kicks off with Devon DeWitt (Meghann Fahy) who's had enough of rich-people-bullshit, especially from someone like Michaela Kell (Julianne Moore)—the wealthy, entitled second wife of a billionaire and undisputed queen bee of New York's high society.  The problem? Devon's sister Simone (Milly Alcock), worships the ground that Michaela walks on. In fact, it’s not just Simone—high society as a whole seems intoxicated by Michaela’s charm, and it’s giving major cult leader energy.

The Men Are Archetypes—Lingering Even When They Are Absent

The men—thankfully incidental to the show's emotional core—arrive as archetypes we know too well: the emotionally stunted, alcoholic father who failed to protect his family; the cheating husband quick to cast blame on the woman he pursued; the wolves in sheep's clothing drawn to powerful women only to tame them; the billionaire saviour whose desire for the underdog masks a deeper need for control. These men are not  even interesting enough to hate , but their shadows loom large—and Devon calls them out with biting precision in ways that make you want to slow clap.

To Survive, We Sometimes Obey

Here's where it gets brutal: Simone, the sister you're rooting for the entire time, chooses the billionaire. She succumbs to her deeper conditioning: the belief that she needs a man to save her. When the opportunity arises, she gladly climbs the proverbial ladder of misogyny offered by the billionaire Peter Kell (Kevin Bacon), smiling as she tramples over another woman to take her place. Devon, the sharp-witted, mistaken savior, is unable to save herself from the conditioned impulse to put her own life on hold to care for her shell of a father, frail in form and unforgivable in action—despite the fact that he has other systems of care to rely on. Michaela, now dethroned, delivers one of the show's most surprising closures—not with vengeance, but with grace. She sees Simone not as a rival, but as another casualty of the same patriarchal system. And in that final moment, Sirens doesn't give us resolution. It gives us recognition - of wounds, of choices, of the quiet strength it takes to survive them.

Watching Sirens felt like staring into a mirror on one of those especially lucid days—the ones where I can see the wreckage women are left to navigate, simply for trusting men to share space within their gate-kept fortresses of access. This theme runs deep in the show, from Simone's starry-eyed worship of billionaire-backed status to Devon's misplaced faith in a broken family structure. That trust—often conditioned, often coerced—feels inescapable, especially in a world where most systems of power still remain firmly in the hands of men. Sirens, in its best moments, taps into that very emotional terrain: not with melodrama, but with razor-sharp observation and wit. Especially for women, it offers a rare, cathartic glimpse into the quiet violence we navigate every day, in a way that our constant struggle finally feels seen. 

The title is clever - traditionally, sirens were used as metaphor for dangerous screaming temptresses who had the potential to disrupt status quo with their voices.  This show reclaims that as a feminist narrative of empowerment for women who refuse to stay quiet. The show is as funny as it is poignant. Whether complicit in the system or in open rebellion against it, no woman escapes the cruelty of gendered expectations, especially when those expectations are wrapped in class privilege, care obligations, and internalised shame. Even today, the seemingly charmed life of women is, in truth, defined by constant struggle—always at war, but never crowned.

That feeling stayed with me long after the show ended.

The System Is Personal

The show’s themes hit particularly hard because most of us have lived through them as women. I grew up in a typical Indian household — not especially conservative compared to others around us — and yet, as a girl, I lived under a power dynamic steeped in control. That grip took years to loosen emotionally, even after I became an adult. And I am not alone. Looking around at friends, colleagues, distant family—it's the same story. Marriage is framed as the sanctioned escape from parental control, but it comes at a price. Women are told to be grateful they're now someone else's "responsibility," no longer a burden on their birth families. Marriage, rather than granting freedom, simply transfers ownership—from father to husband.

Women are expected to look different, behave differently, to signal to society that their status has changed. That they've been claimed. And if you're not married, you're still seen as unfinished, wayward—a question mark hanging over your family's reputation, monitored closely by the male elders who decide whether you're living "within bounds." 

A close friend was stalked by a stranger for weeks. When she spoke of reporting him to the police, her family urged silence—for fear of what people would say, what it would do to their "image" in society. The man's actions were criminal, but it was her potential resistance that was seen as shameful. 

After, having lived in the West for nearly a decade, the contrast in rigidity and pervasiveness of patriarchy in South Asian systems feels even more glaring. The misogyny here isn't always loud—but it is layered, deeply embedded in love, family duty, and the quiet violence of respectability.

Taking Back Control in a World That Never Lets Go

For me, claiming emotional agency—believing I can choose, that my instincts are valid—has been a long road. After being infantilized for most of my adult life, taking back that control has been slow and layered: learning to speak up, to trust myself, to feel strength in what I believe. It's still ongoing—but it's mine now. And yet, just when you think you've carved out a sliver of freedom, you look up and see how power still clusters around the same kinds of men, in the same kinds of rooms—at work, in families, in politics. It's disheartening. It's exhausting. But it's not invisible anymore, not if you're willing to see it for what it is.

Shows like Sirens make that seeing a little easier to bear. Not because they offer solutions, but because they offer solidarity. They re-confirm what you already know: you're not crazy, and you're not alone.

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About the Writer

Ayesha Parikh is the founder of Art and Charlie, a contemporary art gallery in Mumbai that is fast gaining recognition for its bold, socially attuned curatorial programming. Before entering the art world, she spent over a decade at McKinsey & Co. in India and the UK, working on people strategy and culture transformation with clients across Europe, Asia, and Australia. A chartered accountant qualified in the UK with experience in the private equity sector at KPMG, Ayesha brings a multidisciplinary lens to her work. She is driven by a deep curiosity about culture in both its macro structures and intimate, lived expressions—particularly the ways power, identity, and belonging intersect across public and private spaces.