An introduction towards theories of gender representation

Systematic Society Sexism

MISOGYNY – a fear and hatred of women (SEXISM) – a way of exerting power and control in society (PATRIARCHY)

A critical articulation for equality

According to Michelene Wandor, ‘sexism was coined by analogy with the term racism in the American civil rights movement in the early 1960s.” – sexism refers to systematic ways where men and women are brought up to view each other antagonistically – males are always superior to female

1st wave feminism – feminist critical thought became much more prominent and pronounced during the counter cultural movements of the late 1960’s and early 1970’s

1st wave fo feminism = galvanised by organisations such as the British Women’s Suffrage Committee (1867) the International Council of Women (1888) The International Alliance of Women (1904) = – worked to get women the right to vote

1970s – the womens liberation movement set great store by the process of conscious raising – influencing everyday conduct and attitudes + exposing mechanisms of patriarchy – a cultural mind set that had perpetuated a sexual equality.

Tori Mois

feminist = a political position

female = a matter of biology

feminine – set of culturally defined characteristics

Kean Kilbournes

looks at visual narrative media

Laura Mulvey

1975 polemical essay: ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema‘ – role of the male gaze (theoretical approach that suggests the role of “women as image, man as bearer of the look”

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

• “cinema offers a number of possible pleasures – freuds theory of scopophilla (taking people as objects and subjecting them to a controlling and subjective gaze -OBJECTIFICATION)
• vouyerism – sexual pleasure gained in looking
• fetishism – quality of a cut-out – parts of female body are presented as something to be looked at (OBJECTIFIED and SEXUALISED)

Jacques Lacan

mirror moment – highlights parallel between the mirror stage of child development and mirroring process that occurs between audience and screen. ‘a complex process of likeness and difference‘. 

explains that the audience are spectators who project their ‘repressed desire onto the performer‘.

Sut Jhally

draws a connection between the aesthetics of pornography and the codes and conventions of the music video.”

There’s no such thing as communication that doesn’t have something behind it, that it is always constructed by someone. And I want people to be active in the construction of their own world because if you’re not active in the construction of your own world then you’re a victim of someone else’s construction.“

Raunch Culture – 3rd wave feminism (1990s)

• coined by Naomi wolf
• response to generation gap between the feminist movement of 1960s (challenging + reconstextualising definitions of femininity
• 3rd wave sees women lives as intersectional, demonstrating a pluralism towards race, ethnicity, class, religion, gender and nationality when discussing feminism.
• according to Barker and Jane, 3rd wave feminism put forward the following characteristics:
• an emphasis on the differences among women due to race, ethnicity, class, nationality, religion
• individual and do-it-yourself (DIY) tactics
• fluid and multiple subject positions and identities
• cyberactivism
• the reappropriation of derogatory terms such as ‘slut’ and ‘bitch’ for liberatory purposes
• sex positivity

Ariel Levy book “raunch culture” is ‘a product of the unresolved feminist sex wars – the conflict between the women’s movement and the sexual revolution‘

‘Raunch culture is the sexualised performance of women in the media that can play into male stereotypes of women as highly sexually available, where its performers believe they are powerful owners of their own sexuality’

4th wave feminism – same as 3rd but more active – from the radical stance of #MeToo to the Free the Nipple campaign, which Miley Cyrus endorsed and supported (which may encourage you to re-evaluate your initial reading of her video Wrecking Ball above), the use of new media technologies has been a clear demarcation for broadening out the discussion and arguments that are played out in this line of critical thinking.

intersectionality: Queer Theory (founded by Alan Sinfield and Johnathon Dollimore)

Judith Butler

• expressed doubt over the reductionist, essentialist, approach towards the binary oppositions presented in terms of: male/female; feminine/masculine, man/woman.

• suggests that gender is fluid, changeable, plural 

ideas presented by Laura Mulvey seem 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

we have multiple identities that are performed to different people, in different social settings, under different social conditions.