Media and Identity

• “The roles that men and women are expected to fulfill are tightly regulated and heavily moderated by social customs, family expectations, and rigid social codes”
• “The period that Giddens calls ‘late modernity’ begins to take shape in the years following the second world war and is characterized by a relaxation of the rigid social roles expected in a traditionally ordered society”
• “Gauntlett is cautious not to overly exaggerate the potential role that the media plays in enabling identity fluidity. He might assert that audiences play an active role in using media to construct non-traditional identities but he also realizes the weight and scope of traditional representations constructed through media broadcasting do not necessarily enable limitless or very liberated versions of ethnicity or gender”
• “audiences are active in that they control the representations they want to engage themselves with and reject those that do not appeal.”
• “audiences reinforce patriarchal ideologies by subconsciously aligning themselves with the values of a male-dominated society”

Overall these quotes are saying that while people are learning over time that their identity is completely decided by them, there are still some major influences such as media and patriarchy.

Gender as performance

• “Butler draws attention to Levi Strauss’ anthropological work regarding the cultural myths that deal with incest and sex-based taboos. She highlights his conclusions that myths are powerful makers of meaning bot reflecting and defining the way we relate to others in the wider world.”
• “The absence of homosexuality within mythic stories provides evidence that our natural sexual inclinations are heterosexually orientated”
• Judith Butler’s gender model states “Our genders are formed culturally rather than naturally” and “Our genders are not stable but are constructed through repeated actions.”
• Butler also says how ” To maintain an identity that falls outside of the heterosexuality norm in our society is a subversive act that takes a great deal of effort to maintain. Subversion is difficult, painful even because heteronormative ideals are so deeply entrenched within the fabric of language and other cultural practices.”
• “Butler critiques the notion that gender is stored within the body as if it were something akin to a would. Freud’s assertion that our sexual identity is internalized during the *Oedipal phase is illusory- our gendered identities are realized through our desires, sexual contacts, and physical expressions of love. Our gendered identities are not a fixed object- they are constituted as a result of our behaviors.”

*Oedipal- relating to or characterized by an *Oedipus complex.

*Oedipus complex- Psychoanalytic theory, a desire for sexual involvement with the parent of the opposite sex and a concomitant sense of rivalry with the parent of the same sex; a crucial stage in the normal developmental process.

Judith butler outlines the things that shape our “genders”/identities such as past experiences, upbringings, attractions, etc while also saying gender is physically binary but the idea of gender is non-binary.