Feminism

What is Feminism? seeks to challenge power structures and

change the roles and perceptions of women It is understanding how power works

because without this it is impossible to change things

Mass media play an important part in the reinforcement of patriarchal ideology, Feminists seek to see how this works, criticise it and find ways of using the media to propose alternatives to patriarchy

Feminists are interested in the contribution made by the media to society’s dominant ideas about gender roles

Sex is a matter of biological differences, whereas

Gender is about the cultural distinctions which we learn to make between masculinity and femininity

Our sex is determined at birth but we still have to learn how to think and behave as a boy or a girl, according to the expectations of our culture

Mass media and Feminism

Theorists argue that the mass media play an important role in socialisation – teaching us how to behave and think in ways acceptable to our culture

What it means to be a man or woman is not always exactly the same, however gender stereotypes are often reinforced by media representations

Stereotyped gendered roles Femininity Masculinity Caring Tough Nurturing Providing Emotional Rational Domestic Public, work-orientated Sensitive Thick-skinned Passive Active Gentle Rough Soft Hard

These stereotypes can be embarrassing and old fashioned – but they still describe familiar versions of masculinity and femininity

Also they are the qualities associated with power – linked to influential roles, leadership and well paid jobs

The stereotypical feminine qualities are associated with lower status and poorly paid jobs

Gender changes over time Gender roles and representations have

changed over the years – mostly because feminists have made a good deal of progress in eroding the stereotypes

However they have been replaced with different yet equally disempowering stereotypes

Feminists are now concerned not with the stereotypes of low value but with the visual presentation of the body

Naomi Wolf: ‘The Beauty Myth’ “Beauty is a currency like the gold standard.

Like any economy, it is determined by politics and in the modern age in the West, it is the last, best belief system that keeps male domination intact”.

She argues that images of ultra-thin supermodels and the ‘perfect body’ glamorised by advertising, fashion and the media are indications of a patriarchal attack on women’s bodies.

Women’s bodies and female sexuality have become commodities and the consequences of this are mental and physical illness, starvation diets and eating disorders

Laura Mulvey – ‘Visual pleasure and narrative cinema’

‘The male Gaze’ so much of media output assumes that the spectator is male or constructs reality from a male point of view

Her idea was that the darkened cinema offered the perfect opportunity for the male viewer to drool over the erotic exhibition of women’s bodies.

Because female characters are usually irrelevant to the plot, female viewers also identify with the male character, enjoying the spectical of women through his eyes

Angela McRobbie Angela also developed the idea that the

media encourage women to see through men’s eyes in relation to girls’ magazines

Jackie magazine in 1979 worked alongside other socialising influences to reinforce an obsession with romance rather than sexual pleasure

Both Mulvey and McRobbie have found good reasons to modify their views in recent years – mainly because of the array of media representations available today

Gauntlett (2002)

“men and women are seen working side by side as equals, in hospitals, schools and police stations of TV land.

Movie produces are wary of having women as screaming victims, and have realised the kick-ass heroines do better business.

Advertisers have now realised that audiences will laugh at images of the pretty housewife, and have reacted by showing women to be sexy at work instead.”

The waves of Feminism First wave: from the mid 19th to early 20th C

feminist activism was focused on the fight for social and political equality. (The Suffragettes)

Second Wave: the liberation movement of the 1960’s and 70’s – the struggles for equal pay and rights at work

Third wave: more emphasis on the positive nature of ambiguity and difference (not all women are the same). They also have links with postmodernism and question the nature of gender difference

Post feminism sometimes been seen as anti-feminism, a rejection

of the values and sacrifices made by the first and second wave feminists – however this is not the case

Post feminists have a different view of media representations.

If women know that femininity is a construct then they can play with its signs, symbols and identities from a position of power (semiotic guerrilla warfare – where the meanings of signifiers such as highheels and lipstick can be shifted from powerless to powerful.