Feminism Theory, A2 Media Studies

1. Feminism

2. 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

3.  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

4. 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

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

6.  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

7. 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

8. 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.

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

10. 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

11. 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

12. 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 kickass 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.”

13. 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

14. 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.