Bristol Fawcett Society with Bristol Feminist Network

Representations of Women in the Mediaa joint campaign

“Representations enter our collective social understandings, constituting our sense of ourselves, the positions we take up in the world, and the possibilities we

see for action in it.”

Lisa Tickner

From: “Sexuality and/in Representation,” in Difference: On Representation and Sexuality, ed. Max Almy et al., (New York: The New Museum of Contemporary Art, 1984),19.:

______________The Guardian 26 November 2008

January 2009

8 November Bristol 2008

We counted 521 magazine covers picturing people, and did a gender break down:

How many for their looks (idealised and to be looked at)

how many for what they did?

Idealised : 291

Women: 245 Men: 46

Women: 85% men: 15%

Magazine covers in WH Smiths and Borders: proportion of women and men portrayed as 'idealised'

Idealised women

Idealised men

DOING : 230

Men: 196 women: 34

Men: 85% women:15%

Proportion of women and men portrayed as 'doing'

Doing: women

Doing: men

John Berger Ways of Seeing 1972

“Men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at.”

Magazine covers in WH Smiths and Borders: proportion of women and men portrayed as 'idealised'

Idealised women

Idealised men

Proportion of women and men portrayed as 'doing'

Doing: womenDoing: men

“We are in the midst of a violent backlash against feminism that uses images of female beauty as a political weapon against women’s advancement: the beauty myth…”

1991 Naomi Wolf The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women,

Some comments we didn’t catch on film….

Newsagent: ‘What are you doing?’Feminist activists: ‘A project about women in the media’Newsagent: ‘Oh that’s ok then, it’s just that we’ve heard there are some feminist activists around today, so we’ve been told to watch out.’

‘Nice arse’

‘These magazines are aimed at thick and sexist individuals’

Women with not much

on

Women with men

Women as

carers and with families

Women shopping & in the kitchen

Rare exceptions

Observer Sports Monthly177 images of men13 of women

Women as leaders

Few references to women who led in their own right as politicians even at a time when they were prominent (UK party conferences, US presidential campaigns)

Images of women in politics and in business profiled their femininity (favourably) or their lack of femininity (unfavourably)

Women leaders are portrayed against a backdrop of inequality

They are positioned as ‘other’ to the masculine business of politics and business leadership

Women continue to be the represented as if we are the exception in a world that is made up of male movers and shakers.

info@bristolfawcett.org.uk info@bristolfeministnetwork.com

“Representations enter our collective social understandings, constituting our sense of ourselves, the positions we take up in the world, and the possibilities we

see for action in it.”

Lisa Tickner

From: “Sexuality and/in Representation,” in Difference: On Representation and Sexuality, ed. Max Almy et al., (New York: The New Museum of Contemporary Art, 1984),19.: