• a body of theory and political practice• concerned with oppression of women• concerned to challenge the exploitation of women’s labour• concerned to challenge the social discrimination suffered by women
Feminism?
…or is it more accurate to talk of feminisms?
• liberal feminism - seeks equality and recognition• radical feminism - seeks to overthrow patriarchy• socialist feminism - sees women’s oppression as the result of both
patriarchy and capitalism
Feminisms
‘the symbolic annihilation of women’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9fFOelpE_8
• media and popular culture excludes women• media and popular culture trivialises women• media and popular culture condemns women• perpetuates the sexual division of labour and the oppression of
women.
In this way women are socialised into adopting particular roles (domestic labour, sex object) by symbolically rewarding them for good behaviour or punishing them for errant/bad behaviour.
In this way women are socialised into adopting particular roles (domestic labour, sex object) by symbolically rewarding them for good behaviour or punishing them for errant/bad behaviour.
18 February 2008
Girls Aloud’s Nicola Roberts: ‘I turned to drink after being branded ugly’
Good looks
To what extent do ideological messages that are prevalent in popular culture, offer men and women a ‘training’ in
gender roles?
From early 20th century ‘social hygiene’ manuals
Arguments about the socialisation of men and women…
Men
dominant
active
authoritative
variety of social roles
professional
rational
strong
Women
subordinate
passive
submissive
limited social roles
domesticated
emotional
weak
Subservient women
Subservient women
Subservient women
Subservient women
Domesticated women
Domesticated women
Domesticated women
Domesticated but incompetent
just incompetent…
sexually desirable women
desirable and domesticated
Madonna and whore
Madonna and whore
Madonna and whore
sex objects
sex objects
Cadbury’s Flakehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcbhHOZZXnI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMwMKJhaf7A
Emphasising the markers of sexual difference
Titian’s Venus of Urbino, 1538 Hitchcock’s Rear Window, 1954
Woman to be looked at …
Ways of Seeing - episode 2 (John Berger, BBC, 1972)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u72AIab-Gdc
sexual violence in advertisements
sexual violence in advertisements
sexual violence in advertisements
sexual violence in advertisements
sexual violence in advertisements
sexual violence in advertisements
Report from the University of Bristol and NSPCC, September 2009
The survey of 13 to 17-year-olds found that:
• nearly 9 out of 10 girls had been in an intimate relationship
• of these, 1 in 6 said they had been pressured into sexual intercourse
• 1 in 16 said they had been raped.
• A quarter of girls had suffered physical violence such as being slapped, punched, or beaten by their boyfriends.
pleasuredesire
Popular culture
Tanya Modleski, Loving with a Vengeance, 1982
Mass produced romantic fantasies speak to very real problems in women’s lives
Janice Radway, Reading the Romance, 1987
• study of romantic fiction and its female readership• discriminating readership• ideal story – independent, intelligent, good humoured woman secures
the love and attention of a tender intelligent man, who although an emotional pre-literate, eventual learns to care for her and nurture her
• romantic fantasy that recalls a a time of ‘maternal’ care• offers the vicarious experience of emotional succour which women
are expected to provide to others without adequate reciprocation in their own lives
• an element of Utopian protest against patriarchy
Ien Ang, Watching Dallas, 1985
• ‘emotional realism’• ‘melodramatic imagination’ – day to day
existence made as profoundly meaningful as classical tragedy
• validates domestic, emotional life and so privileges cultural competences often shared by women
Or…
Post-feminism
• repudiation of feminism / images of female success
• normalisation of pornography and hostility to feminism
• young women’s ‘freedom’, cool and sophistication dependant upon their complicity and acquiescence to this culture
Angela McRobbie (2006) ‘Post-feminism and the new gender regime’ in Curran and Morley (eds) Media and Cultural Theory (London: Routledge)
• To what extent has ‘women’s lib’ been transformed into individual freedom?
• To what extent is image of female ‘success’ tied to notions of the empowered of consumption?
• If consumer spending power has liberated individual women, what is the quality of this liberty and freedom?
