feminist critical thinking

Systemic Societal Sexism?

  • MISOGYNY = This is a term that derives from psychoanalysis and essentially means a fear and hatred of women, or put simply: SEXISM, a mechanism used by males as a way of exerting power and control in society, otherwise known as PATRIARCHY.
  • we are looking at sexism from an institutional perspective + individual level

feminism

= A critical articulation for equality

second wave of feminism American civil rights movement in the early 1960s. – according to michelene wandor

As a final part of this brief introduction, it is useful to draw upon Toril Moi’s (1987) crucial set of distinctions between: ‘feminist’, ‘female’ and ‘feminine’.

  • Feminist = a political position
  • Female = a matter of biology
  • Feminine = a set of culturally defined characteristics

Laura Mulvey – specifically focus on her 1975 polemical essay: ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema‘. Central to her thesis was the role of the male gaze, a theoretical approach that suggests the role of woman as image, man as bearer of the look,’ in contemporary visual media.

In a world ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure in looking has been split between active/male passive/femaleThe 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” = females are looked at and males look

cinema offers a number of possible pleasures’. One is based around Freudian psychoanalytic concept of scopophilia taking people as objects and subjecting them to a controlling and subjective gaze‘ 

fetishism – 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’. = women become objects

Jacques Lacan = interested in child development, you slowly developing consciousness – 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‘. She also, discusses the position of the audience, categorising them as spectators who project their ‘repressed desire onto the performer‘.

Sut Jhally‘s work at the Media Education Foundation (where Jean Kilbourne also produced much or her work) draws a connection between the aesthetics of pornography and the codes and conventions of the music video. = how music videos link to the representation of women

Raunch Culture – 3rd Wave Feminism

  • 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
  • According to Ariel Levy, in her book Female Chauvinist Pigs raunch culture is ‘a product of the unresolved feminist sex wars – the conflict between the women’s movement and the sexual revolution‘ (2006:74). In other words, while on the one hand, the idea of liberation involves new freedoms for sexual exhibition, experimentation and presentation, on the other, it may well be playing out the same old patterns of exploitation, objectification and misogyny?
  • 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 = much more drastic and active than 3rd wave

Intersectionality: Queer Theory

Van Zoonen

Similarly, Lisbet Van Zoonen also highlights the idea that the concept of ‘woman’ is not a homogenous, collective noun. That students need to be aware of the differences between women, that ‘gender is not the defining quality alone for women, and intersects with race, sexuality and class.’ (Hendry & Stephenson 2018:52). Van Zoonen, develops and applies ideas of cultural hegemony (GRAMSCI) and interpellation (ALTHUSSER) towards feminist studies,

Hook: Multicultural Intersectionality

As Barker and Jane note, ‘black feminists have pointed ot the differences between black and white women’s experiences, cultural representations and interests’ (2016:346). In other words, arguments around gender also intersect with postcolonial arguments around ‘power relationships between black and white women’. So that ‘in a postcolonial context, women carry the double burden of being colonized by imperial powers and subordinated by colonial and native men’ (ibid).

As a way of exploring this notion of intersectionality ie the idea that an approach such as feminism, is NOT UNIVERSAL, SINGULAR or HOMOGENEOUS as this is a REDUCTIONIST and ESSENTIALIST way of seeing the world. Rather intersectionality highlights the way ideas and concepts such as ‘female‘, ‘feminist‘, ‘feminine‘ (Moi 1987) intersect with other concepts, ideas and approaches, such as, sexuality, class, age, education, religion, ability. A way of exploring these ideas is through the work of bell hook.

bell hook (always spelt in lower case – real name: Gloria Jean Watkins) advocates media literacy, the need to engage with popular culture to understand class struggle, domination, renegotiation and revolution. Put another, encouraging us all to ‘think critically’ to ‘change our lives’.ethnicity and race, see for example here work ‘Cultural Criticism and Transformation‘ which was another video production by the Media Education Foundation (MEF), directed by Sut Jhally – part 1 below, parts 2 & 3 at the end of this post.

Feminist critical thinking

Misogyny: is defined as hatred of women or girls, expressed as disgust, intolerance or entrenched prejudice, serving to legitimate women’s oppression.

Patriacrchy: Patriarchy is a social system in which men hold primary power and predominate in roles of political leadership, moral authoritysocial privilege and control of property. 

Sexism from an institutional perspective and at an individual level. Looks at groups, organisations.

Feminism: critical articulation for equality. Four waves of feminism. After the first wave of feminism, which was galvanised by organisations such as, the British Women’s Suffrage Committee (1867), the International Council of Women (1888), the The International Alliance of Women (1904), and so on who, in early part of the 20th Century, worked to get women the right to vote.

  • Feminist = a political position
  • Female = a matter of biology
  • Feminine = a set of culturally defined characteristics

The work of Laura Mulvey and specifically focus on her 1975 polemical essay: ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema‘. Central to her thesis was the role of the male gaze, a theoretical approach that suggests the role of woman as image, man as bearer of the look,’ in contemporary visual media. She argues that females are looked at and males are the lookers.

Scopophilia (‘taking people as objects and subjecting them to a controlling and subjective gaze‘ ie OBJECTIFICATION); another is vouyerism (the sexual pleasure gained in looking); another is fetishism, the way in which parts of the female body are presented as something to be ‘looked at’ and therefore ‘objectified‘ and ‘sexualised‘ which is dehumanising as they become objects and not people. ‘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’.

Sut Jhally‘s work at the Media Education Foundation, draws a connection between the aesthetics of pornography and the codes and conventions of the music video.

Raunch Culture – 3rd Wave 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 1960’s and ’70’s, 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. Eg, a difference between a black woman’s experience and a white woman’s.

  • 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

Intersectionality: Queer Theory

Queer theory is a field of critical theory that emerged in the early 1990s out of the fields of queer studies and women’s studies. “Queer theory” can have various meanings depending upon its usage. Two common usages of queer theory include a 1) methodology for literary analysis and 2) a productive practice of theory.

Hook: Multicultural Intersectionality

As Barker and Jane note, ‘black feminists have pointed to the differences between black and white women’s experiences, cultural representations and interests’ (2016:346). In other words, arguments around gender also intersect with postcolonial arguments around ‘power relationships between black and white women’. So that ‘in a postcolonial context, women carry the double burden of being colonized by imperial powers and subordinated by colonial and native men’.

FEMINIST critical thinking

Systemic Societal Sexism

Misogyny: This is a term that derives from psychoanalysis and essentially means a fear and hatred of women

Sexism: the systematic ways in which men and women are brought up to view each other antagonistically, on the assumption that the male is always superior to the female

Patriarchy: a mechanism used by males as a way of exerting power and control in society

Sexism from an institutional perspective and at an individual level:

Feminism: a critical articulation for equality

<Feminist<>Female<>Feminine>

As a final part of this brief introduction, it is useful to draw upon Toril Moi’s (1987) crucial set of distinctions between: ‘feminist’, ‘female’ and ‘feminine’.

  • Feminist = a political position
  • Female = a matter of biology
  • Feminine = a set of culturally defined characteristics

Laura Mulvey:

1975 polemical essay:

Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema‘. Central to her thesis was the role of the male gaze, a theoretical approach that suggests the role of woman as image, man as bearer of the look,’ in contemporary visual media.

One is based around Freudian psychoanalytic concept of scopophilia (‘taking people as objects and subjecting them to a controlling and subjective gaze‘ ie OBJECTIFICATION)

another is vouyerism (the sexual pleasure gained in looking)

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’.

In a world ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure in looking has been split between active/male passive/femaleThe 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.

Music Video: ‘The Dreamworld?’

Sut Jhally‘s work at the Media Education Foundation (where Jean Kilbourne also produced much or her work) draws a connection between the aesthetics of pornography and the codes and conventions of the music video.

Raunch Culture – 3rd Wave Feminism

  • 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

Intersectionality: Queer Theory

Hook: Multicultural Intersectionality

As Barker and Jane note, ‘black feminists have pointed ot the differences between black and white women’s experiences, cultural representations and interests’ (2016:346). In other words, arguments around gender also intersect with postcolonial arguments around ‘power relationships between black and white women’. So that ‘in a postcolonial context, women carry the double burden of being colonized by imperial powers and subordinated by colonial and native men’ (ibid).

feminist

Sexism refers to the systematic ways in which men and women are brought up to view each other antagonistically, on the assumption that the male is always superior to the female‘ (1981:13).

In the social, political and economic realm, this meant demands for equal pay, equal education, equal opportunities, free contraception and abortion, greater provision for childcare and so on

  • Feminist = a political position
  • Female = a matter of biology
  • Feminine = a set of culturally defined characteristics

Scopophiliataking people as objects and subjecting them to a controlling and subjective gaze‘ ie OBJECTIFICATION

Vouyerism– the sexual pleasure gained in looking

Laura Mulvey– wrote an essay ‘Visual pleasure and Narrative cinema.’ Laura says there is an imbalance between the active male and passive female.

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’.

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

In movies the dominant look is always hetero, rather than homosexual in men

3rd wave feminism- charcaterised by a rebellion against Mothers.

  • 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

Put another, it suggests that we have multiple identities that are performed to different people, in different social settings, under different social conditions

Feminist Critical thinking

Structural level – organisation, groups society’s

Textual level- individual images, films

Untouchable – Harvey Weinstein documentary

Laura Mulvey

  • wrote an essay in 1975 called ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’
  • her thesis being the role of the male gaze
  • theoretical approach that suggests the role of ‘women as image, man as bearer of the look’
  • active male (the one who’s looking), passive female (one who’s being looked at)
  • scopophilia- sexual pleasure from watching others
  • vouyerism- sexual pleasure gained in looking
  • fetishism- erotic attachment to an inanimate object or an ordinarily asexual part of the human body

Jacques Lacan (the mirror moment)

  • psychologist, specialised in child development
  • Mulvey draws on his work on the mirror moment
  • mirror stage of development, realising you’re a human being and your own person, at a young age
  • Mulvey highlights the mirroring process that occurs between audience and screen ‘complex process of likeness and difference’

Raunch Culture

3rd wave of feminism characterised as a reaction to 2nd wave feminists coined by Naomi Wolf . Fighting against the Anti-sexualised narrative of 2nd wave feminists. More aware of feminist divisons, gay, straight, black, white – less blanket terms across ‘all-woman’

‘Raunch culture is the sexualised performance of women in 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’ – Hendy and Stephenson

Judith Butler

  • applied queer theory to Feminist Critical Thinking
  • reductionist, essentialist approach towards binary oppositions, male/female, feminine/masculine, man/woman
  • suggests gender is fluid, changeable, plural

Feminist critical thinking

An introduction towards theories of gender representation, couched in a summary of feminist critical thinking and applied to music videos, adverts and video games but equally applicable to all aspects of media, literature and cultural studies.

Feminist= a political position

Female= a matter of biology

Feminine= a set of culturally defined characteristics

1st feminist wave= suffragettes gaining the vote.

Secondwave feminism was a period of feminist activity and thought that began in the United States in the early 1960s and lasted roughly two decades. It quickly spread across the Western world, with an aim to increase equality for women by gaining more than just enfranchisement.

Critical Thinking= the objective analysis and evaluation of an issue in order to form a judgement.

A good starting point, in terms of key concepts, is to look at the work of Laura Mulvey and specifically focus on her 1975 polemical essay: ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema‘. Central to her thesis was the role of the male gaze, a theoretical approach that suggests the role of woman as image, man as bearer of the look,’ in contemporary visual media.

 ‘cinema offers a number of possible pleasures’. 

 scopophilia (‘taking people as objects and subjecting them to a controlling and subjective gaze‘ ie OBJECTIFICATION); 

vouyerism (the sexual pleasure gained in looking)

 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, tongues, thighs, legs and breasts, etc. etc) which are exaggerated through cinematic conventions of ‘scale’, ‘size’, ‘focus’.

 Jacques Lacan and The Other

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 1960’s and ’70’s, 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.

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

  • 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

Judith Butler: Initial critical ideas that looked at the plurality of feminist thought can be found in the early work around Queer Theory. In the UK the pioneering academic presence in queer studies was the Centre for Sexual Dissedence 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 reductionistessentialist, approach towards the binary oppositions presented in terms of: male/femalefeminine/masculineman/woman. Arguing, that this is too simple and does not account for the internal differences that distinguishes different forms of gender identity, which according to Butler ‘tend to be instruments of regulatory regimes . . . normalising categories of oppressive structures

Reductionist: a person who analyses and describes a complex phenomenon in terms of its simple or fundamental constituents.

Essentialism is the view that every entity has a set of attributes that are necessary to its identity and function. In early Western thought, Plato’s idealism held that all things have such an “essence”—an “idea” or “form”.

some of the 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 

feminism and critical thinking

  • feminism closely linked to sexism
  • feminism is operating at an institutional level and a individual level.
  • looking at not just how sexual difference was represented but who was in the positions of power to represent sexual difference.

 Laura Mulvey

  • Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema‘.
  • “In a world ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure in looking has been split between active/male passive/female.”
  • fetishism =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’.
  • scopophilia = pleasure in looking
  • vouyerism = sexual pleasure in looking
  • controlling and subjective gaze  = male gaze
  • Mulvey draws on the work of Jacques Lacan

Jacques Lacan

  • mirror stage = child development and the mirroring process that occurs between audience and screen – ‘a complex process of likeness and difference
  • Third way feminism can be characterized by a rebellion against mums
  • The third-wave sees women’s lives as intersectional, demonstrating a pluralism towards race, ethnicity, class, religion, gender and nationality when discussing feminism.
  • 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 –Hendry & Stephenson

Feminist critical thinking

Feminism is closely linked with sexism.

Company and individuals

Sexism is defined on the assumption that men are always superior to females.

Sexual harassment is major in the media industry. Harvey Weinstine= blackmailed woman into having sex with them so that they could work with him to produce their own films.

Feminist- political , Female- biological gender, Feminine- characteristics

1960’s American civil rights movements

Ads view woman differently than men as they are often used to model however in the work place was a secretary, waitress or a cleaner.

First wave of feminism– Suffragettes (1867) – worked on getting womans rights. Woman went as far as chaining themselves to railings, protesting in streets however got punished for this by men. The were often put into prison or beaten in the streets.

Partricarchy – is he cultural mind set in men and woman about sexual inequality.

Laura Mulvey- “visual pleasure and narrative cinema” + there are more men in the film industry (more camera operators, directors…ect) There is an imbalance. ‘visual pleasure’- active in looking and woman are essentially for ‘looking at’ usually sexually. (scopophilia- is the liking of looking, example objectification) freud pschoanalytic concept.

Laura-” taking people as objects and subjecting them to a controlling and subjective gaze” ie: man gaze, vouyerism- the sexual pleasure gained in looking.

Fetishism- close ups of the female body to be presented as something to admire therefore being objectified and sexualised.( eg; lips, hips,bum,breast,thighs…)

Child development- building a sense of who we are through the Other, only ever see a reflection of ourselves. We define ourselves by others. Identity formation. A male construction of women. Cinema- woman are portrayed in a certain way which forces woman to think that how the should behave or be.

Music videos often show woman as a sexual object to please the men. In the background behind men whilst wearing small pieces of clothing (bikini, underwear) dancing erotically this is because it ‘sells’. They use woman bodies as a selling point in music videos. Eg blurred lines- men in suits , woman in underwear.

However is also used in the gaming industry, female characters movement are a lot more sexualised than the male eg; their walk- the hips are oftenly swayed drawing more attention to their butt. This is for the male gaze.

Laura Mulvey wrote her book many years ago however it is still relevant in todays world.

Dreamwolrd- codes and conventions which are taken from pornography.

Raunch Culture the 3rd wave of feminism– younger than 2nd wave feminist, more alert to race and class.(Naomi wolf) Began 1990 characteristic rebellion against their feminist mums, and a ‘sex negative’ approach towards older feminists.

They had many characteristics: sex positivity, a re-appropriation of derogatory terms (slut, bitch), fluid and multiple subject positions and identity.

Eg- wrecking ball by Miley Cyrus, they use their sexuality to make money or to feel empowered.

Eg- metoo movement, about being sexually harassed. Or free the nipple were woman want to be able to not wear a bra and not be sexualised by men.

4th wave – lipstick, butch, femme, and girly girl are all different types of feminism. Judith Butler- we are not a gender its how u construct yourself. You can change how you portray yourself, you build your own identity, eg social media.

Multicultural intersectionality- black gay females/white gay females… e.c.t…

Feminist critical thinking

sexism was coined by analogy with the term racism in the American civil rights movement in the early 1960s. Defined simply, sexism refers to the systematic ways in which men and women are brought up to view each other antagonistically, on the assumption that the male is always superior to the female.

Laura Mulvey – A good starting point, in terms of key concepts, is to look at the work of Laura Mulvey and specifically focus on her 1975 polemical essay: ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema‘. Central to her thesis was the role of the male gaze, a theoretical approach that suggests the role of woman as image, man as bearer of the look,’ in contemporary visual media. in a world ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure in looking has been split between active/male passive/female.

  • vouyerism (the sexual pleasure gained in looking)
  • scopophilia (‘taking people as objects and subjecting them to a controlling and subjective gaze‘ ie OBJECTIFICATION)

Mulvey draws on the work of 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‘.

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 1960’s and ’70’s, challenging and recontextualising some of the definitions of femininity that grew out of that earlier period.

According to Barker and Jane (2016), third wave feminism, which is regarded as having begun in the mid-90’s is the ‘rebellion of younger women against what was perceived as the prescriptive, pushy and ‘sex negative’ approach of older feminists.’ (344) and put forward the following recognisable 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

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

feminism

  • Feminism and sexism are closely linked
  • sexism was coined by analogy with the term racism in the American civil rights movement in the early 1960s. Defined simply, sexism refers to the systematic ways in which men and women are brought up to view each other antagonistically, on the assumption that the male is always superior to the female‘  – Michelene Wandor
  • individual textual levels
  • company levels
  • how different genders are represented
  • who has the power to represent gender difference
  • “the camera becomes the mechanism for producing an illusion”

Laura Mulvey

  • ‘Visual pleasure and narrative cinema’
  • cinema is biased towards men
  • split between active/male and passive/female
  • scopophilia (pleasure in looking)
  • controlling and subjective gaze (male)
  • vouyerism (sexual pleasure in looking)
  • fetishism – close ups on parts of the body which are objectified or sexualised

Sut Jhally

  • 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.

Third wave feminism (raunch culture)

  • began in the early 90’s
  • younger and newer looks at feminism compared with older generation feminism
  • emphasis on the difference among women due to race, ethnicity, class, nationality, religion
  • individual and DIY tactics
  • fluid and multiple subject positions and identities
  • cyber activism
  • 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’
  • the re appropriation of derogatory terms such as ‘slut’ and ‘bitch’ for liberatory purposes
  • sex positivity

Essay in planner – gender as performance p1