feminism is linked to sexism

critical thinking: the objective analysis and evaluation of an issue in order to form a judgment.

Operating at two points: institutional – Individual

suffragette = a woman seeking the right to vote through organized protest.

Laura Mulvey: polemical essay: ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema‘. 

Polemical essay: The term polemic is defined by Merriam-Webster as “an aggressive attack on or refutation of the opinions or principles of another.” A polemic essay is an essay in which one takes a strong stance for a particular idea or position, and, by virtue of that stance, takes a strong stance against the opposing idea or position 

There is an imbalance between woman and men: In a world ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure in looking has been split between active/male passive/female. The determining male gaze projects its fantasy onto the female figure which is styled accordingly. In their traditional exhibitionist role, women are simultaneously looked at and displayed and their appearance coded for strong visual and erotic impact

The Freudian psychoanalytic concept of scopophilia (‘taking people as objects and subjecting them to a controlling and subjective gaze‘ ie OBJECTIFICATION);

another is voyeurism (the sexual pleasure gained in looking);

another is fetishism (‘the quality of a cut-out . . . stylised and fragmented‘), the way in which parts of the female body are presented as something to be ‘looked at’ and therefore ‘objectified‘ and ‘sexualised‘ – ‘close-ups of legs . . . or a face‘, of lips, hips, bums, tums, thighs, legs and breasts, etc. etc) which are exaggerated through cinematic conventions of ‘scale’, ‘size’, ‘focus’.

Jacques Lacan (‘this mirror moment‘), highlighting the parallel between the ‘mirror stage’ of child development and the mirroring process that occurs between audience and screen – ‘a complex process of likeness and difference‘. We will never be able to truly see ourselves only reflections of our selves through others and media, like photos.

She also, discusses the position of the audience, categorising them as spectators who project their ‘repressed desire onto the performer‘.

Man is reluctant to gaze at his exhibitionist like‘, thus, he must control the look, and thereby, the narrative. Made possible ‘by structuring the film around a main controlling figure with whom the spectator can identify‘. Rules and conventions of mainstream narrative cinema, that appear to follow ‘according to the principles of the ruling ideology‘. In other words, the dominant look is always hetero, rather than homosexual.

Third-wave feminism began in the early 1990s, coined by Naomi Wolf, it was a response to the generation gap between the feminist movement of the 1960s and ’70s, challenging and recontextualising some of the definitions of femininity that grew out of that earlier period. In particular, the third-wave sees women’s lives as intersectional, demonstrating a pluralism towards race, ethnicity, class, religion, gender and nationality when discussing feminism.

Third-wave feminism began in the early 1990s, coined by Naomi Wolf, it was a response to the generation gap between the feminist movement of the 1960s and ’70s, challenging and recontextualising some of the definitions of femininity that grew out of that earlier period. In particular, the third-wave sees women’s lives as intersectional, demonstrating a pluralism towards race, ethnicity, class, religion, gender and nationality when discussing feminism.

Baker and jane: ‘rebellion of younger women against what was perceived as the prescriptive, pushy and ‘sex-negative’ approach of older feminists.’ 

put forward the following recognisable characteristics:

1. an emphasis on the differences among women due to race, ethnicity, class, nationality, religion

2. individual and do-it-yourself (DIY) tactics

3. fluid and multiple subject positions and identities

4. cyberactivism

5. the reappropriation of derogatory terms such as ‘slut’ and ‘bitch’ for liberatory purposes

6. sex positivity

Baker and jane: ‘rebellion of younger women against what was perceived as the prescriptive, pushy and ‘sex-negative’ approach of older feminists.’ 

Queer Theory. In the UK the pioneering academic presence in queer studies was the Centre for Sexual Dissidence in the English department at Sussex University, founded by Alan Sinfield and Johnathon Dollimore in 1990 (Barry: 141). In terms of applying queer theory to feminist critical thought, Judith Butler, among others expressed doubt over the reductionist, essentialist, approach towards the binary oppositions presented in terms of male/female; feminine/masculine, man/woman. Arguing, that this is too simple and does not account for the internal differences that distinguish different forms of gender identity, which according to Butler ‘tend to be instruments of regulatory regimes . . . normalising categories of oppressive structures‘

 Laura Mulvey seems to suggest that gender is fixed – male/female – that it is structured by institutions and those powerful individuals who are able to exert power and control – Weinstein et al. While still recognising those arguments presented by Mulvey, Jean Kilbourne, Sut Jhally and others, Butler suggests that gender is fluid, changeable, plural a set of categories to be played out and performed by individual subjects in individual moments in time and space.

Put another, it suggests that we have multiple identities that are performed to different people, in different social settings, under different social conditions. For example, look at categories such as lipstick lesbian, butch and femme, girly-girl and so on, which illustrate the multiple, plural nature of identity, representation and performance with feminist critical thinking.