Harry Styles

he is adamant that his venture is more than a celebrity endorsement.

“It was a fun little project” he said

Styles announced that he hoped to “dispel the myth of a binary existence”.

Judith Butler

Butler suggests that gender is not fixed and reinforced consistently through behaviour and performance. “an identity instituted through a stylized repetition of acts”. In other words, (eg. a man sitting in a certain way would make him a man/male)

“What it means to be a woman does not remain the same from decade to decade” as stated by Judith Butler indicates that the general society’s ideas and expectations around women are constantly changing as time goes on. For example, a long time ago, women were generally expected to not leave the house very much and focus on cleaning up after the man, and not work very strenuous jobs. While this view is still relevant to some degree today, it is far less prevalent, with women having no general “expectations” and they are allowed and not confined to particular jobs and hobbies.

Butler concludes that “masculinity and femininity are not naturally given states, but instead are maintained by individuals through everyday acts” – This means that you are not born male or female but your gender defines you through your actions everyday.

“The media, more importantly, plays a vital role in providing us with a set of gender-based templates that we use to inform those performances” – This means that the media provides us with a structure go to off of, of what is male and what is female based like actions.

“Gender is not solely determined by primary experiences during childhood” – This means that your gender is defined by your childhood experiences.

“Butler might argue that our identities are an open story, but she also acknowledges that heterosexuality is the dominant identity mode in our culture” – This means that she says our identities are open, but when it comes down to it, our culture is still very dominant in heterosexuality.

“Butler also examines the work of Sigmund Freud, who similarly explains same-sex affection as a form of melancholia.” – This means that Sigmund Freud explained same-sex affection to be caused by a feeling of deep sadness.

David Gauntlett

“In social structures in which tradition dominates, the notion of who we are is heavily determined by long-standing social forces” – This means that we don’t get much choice as these long-standing social forces have been here for much longer and therefore the tradition dominates.

“The roles that men and women are expected to fulfil, for example, are tightly regulated and heavily moderated by social customs.” – This means that society expects men and women to fulfil social customs and be a man / women.

“Men are expected to assume stereotypically masculine identities, to adopt the role of the primary earner, while women are expected to look after the children and clean the family home.” – These are all typical social ideals and beliefs of a patriarchal society.

“Audiences are active. They control the representations they want to engage with and can actively reject those that do not appeal.” – This means that the consumer decides what pieces of media he wants to consume and what he doesn’t want to consume