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Feminist Critical Thinking, Representation, Theory

Feminist critical thinking

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

First wave of Feminism

‘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‘

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).

Second wave of Feminism

‘the feminist literary criticism of today is the product of the women’s movement of the 1960’s’

 -The facilitation of birth control and divorce, the acceptance of abortion and homosexuality occurred. Set great store by the process of consciousness raising’ ‘influencing everyday conduct and attitudes.’ and ‘exposing the mechanisms of patriarchy, that is the cultural ‘mind-set’ in men and women which perpetuated sexual inequality’.

Third wave of Feminism

-coined by Naomi Wolf

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

Emerged in the mid-1990’s as a response to the generation gap between the feminist movement of the 1960’s and ’70’s. It had challenged some of the definitions of femininity that was believed in the 60’s and 70’s. women’s lives were then seen as intersectional, which demonstrated pluralism.an emphasis on the differences among women due to race, ethnicity, class, nationality, religion

Different Characteristics:

-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

Fourth wave of Feminism

-Explores contradictory arguments 

 -Recognises emancipatory tools of new social platforms to connect, share and develop new perspectives.

Introduction of the idea of raunch culture= ‘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’

Feminist Critical Thinking, Representation, Theory

Femenist Critical Thinking

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

First wave of Feminism

In the past men were regarded greater at creating literally pieces and writings then woman were. Virginia Woolf stating that simply if women were not stereotyped and given equal opportunities to men originally, then more literacy pieces would have been made. These opportunities being not regarded as worse or beneath men and given the correct education and same rights as men.

Mary Wollstonecraft: was an English writer, philosopher, and advocate of women’s rights. She was one of the first advocate for woman’s rights and created a piece in 1792 named “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: With Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects” which is about as the name states, a moral and vindication of women’s rights.

Third wave of Feminism

Third wave feminism is different to feminism of the 1960’s. Similar, but also different. Third wave feminism tries to embrace plural identities. This is called intersectionality.

According to Barker and Jane (2016), third wave feminism, which is regarded as having begun in the mid-90’s has 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 re-appropriation of derogatory terms such as ‘slut’ and ‘bitch’ for liberatory purposes
  • sex positivity

‘a product of the unresolved feminist sex wars – the conflict between the women’s movement and the sexual revolution‘ .

According to Ariel Levy, in her book Female Chauvinist Pigs, raunch culture is on the one hand, the idea of liberation involves new freedoms for sexual exhibition, experimentation and presentation, and on the other, it may well be playing out the same old patterns of exploitation, objectification and misogyny?

Feminist Critical Thinking, Maybelline, Score

feminism stages

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there is 4 types of feminism

Feminist = a political position

Female = a matter of biology

Feminine = a set of culturally defined characteristics

‘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 1981:13)

Barry makes the point that although the women’s movement was not the start of feminism. In other words, the issue of women’s inequality has a history that pre-dates the 1960’s, see for examples: Mary Wollstonecraft, (1792) A Vindication of the Rights of Women; Virginia Woolf(1929) A room of one’s own; Simone de Beauvoir(1949) The Second Sex. this was the first wave feminism

where one was to do do with equal rights and having the right to work and such this was enforced by the suffer-jets Indeed feminist critical thought became much more prominent and pronounced during the counter cultural movements of the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, which heralded, among other changes: the facilitation of of birth control and divorce, the acceptance of abortion and homosexuality, the abolition of hanging and theatre censorship, and the Obscene Publications Act (1959) – which led to the Chatterly trial. Nevertheless, this was second wave feminism

‘rebellion of younger women against what was perceived as the prescriptive, pushy and ‘sex negative’ approach of older feminists.’ (344)

Barker and Jane (2016 p. 344)

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 re-contextualising 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. this is third wave feminism this highlighted the hypersexualised culture and forcing women to sexualise others and themselves in summary third wave feminism is different from the sixty’s but where it is different it is the same although the sixty’s talks about the plural identity’s also known as intersexuality

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 on the one hand, the idea of liberation involves new freedoms for sexual exhibition, experimentation and presentation,and 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’

3judith butler a theorist on gender talks about how gender is a performative thing and that we act in a certain way to make an identification of yourself and the way you are is based upon the way you act.

you cannot ‘understand Black women’s experiences of discrimination by thinking separately about sex discrimination and race discrimination’ (ibid)

Sigle-Rushton & Lindström, 2013 p131

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‘

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 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 distinguishes different forms of gender identity, which according to Butler ‘tend to be instruments of regulatory regimes . . . normalising categories of oppressive structures‘ (14:2004).

Judith Butler: ‘gender as performance’

identity can be a site of contest and revision‘

Butler (2004:19)

In many ways Judith Butler counterpoints earlier ideas of gender representation, for example, 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 – Weinstein et al. While still recognising those argments 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. Which can be explored and mapped out into similar studies on male identity (again see work by Sinfield, Dollimore and others).

The idea of identity performance is explored further in another post: Representation, Identity & Self. However, to understand the approach of gender as performative is to recognises a ‘phenomenon that is being reproduced all the time‘, which perhaps suggests that ‘nobody is a gender from the start.’ The question for Butler (and for students of media and cultural studies) is therefore: how does gender get established and policed? Which, of course, is why we look at her ideas in subjects like Media Studies.

Essays, Exam Prep, Feminist Critical Thinking

feminist critical thinking

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

First wave of Feminism

In the past men were regarded greater at creating literally pieces and writings then woman were. Virginia Woolf stating that simply if women were not stereotyped and given equal opportunities to men originally, then more literacy pieces would have been made. These opportunities being not regarded as worse or beneath men and given the correct education and same rights as men.

Mary Wollstonecraft: was an English writer, philosopher, and advocate of women’s rights. She was one of the first advocate for woman’s rights and created a piece in 1792 named “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: With Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects” which is about as the name states, a moral and vindication of women’s rights.

Second wave of Feminism

‘the feminist literary criticism of today is the product of the women’s movement of the 1960’s’(Barry 2017:123)

  • Feminist critical thought became much more prominent and pronounced during the counter cultural movements of the late 1960’s and early 1970’s.
  • The Obscene Publications Act (1959) – which led to the Chatterly trial.
  • A feminist group during this wave was the suffragettes who argued for voting rights for women.
  • In 1913 a woman under the name Emily Wilding Davison took it upon herself to break into the track of a horse race and being trampled/hit by King George V’s horse “Anmer” to make a point and publicise the suffragettes movement. This was a show of how far these women were willing to go for their movement.

Third wave of Feminism

The Third Wave of feminism was greatly focused on reproductive rights for women.

Third-wave feminism began in the early 1990s, led by Naomi Wolf. Challenging and re-contextualising some of the definitions of femininity that grew out of that earlier period. The third-wave sees women’s lives as intersectional, demonstrating a pluralism towards race, ethnicity, class, religion, gender and nationality when discussing feminism.

Born in the 1960s and 1970s as members of Generation X and grounded in the civil-rights advances of the second wave, third-wave feminists embraced individualism in women and diversity and sought to redefine what it meant to be a feminist.

The third wave is traced to the emergence of the riot grrrl feminist punk subculture in Olympia, Washington, in the early 1990s

According to Barker and Jane (2016) 3rd wave has 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

‘a product of the unresolved feminist sex wars – the conflict between the women’s movement and the sexual revolution‘ .Ariel Levy (2006:74)

An idea of 3rd wave in modern times is the body positivity and sex positivity in feminism, women want to be able to show off their bodies without it having to be a big deal. This is reinforced by things like the ‘Free the Nipple’ campaign.

Exam Prep, Feminist Critical Thinking, Representation

Feminist Critical Thinking

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 Toril Moi’s (1987) distinctions of feminine, female and feminist:

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

The issue of women’s inequality has a history that pre-dates the 1960’s.

“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 1981:13)

1st wave of feminism:

  • 1848 to 1920’s
  • Suffragette and Suffragists movements.
  • women campaigned for basic rights such as an education.
  • Virginia Woolf touches upon the fact that women have less rights to such things as education, art and literature. she challenges this and asks what if men had the same restriction? Society would have missed out on people like Shakespeare. And was he really talented? or did he just have a good education?
Essays, Exam Prep, Feminist Critical Thinking

FEMINIST CRITICAL THINKING

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

First wave of feminism:

Mary Wollstonecraft (1792): One of the the first advocates of woman’s rights. She authored the book “A vindication of woman’s rights” in 1792 which was a book based on the political and moral subjects of woman’s rights.

Second wave of feminism:

The British Suffragettes started to make statements and bringing attention to their points and ideas after being ignored late in the 1860s. In 1913 a woman under the name Emily Wilding Davison took it upon herself to break into the track of a horse race and being trampled/hit by King George V’s horse “Anmer” to make a point and publicise the suffragettes movement. As well as this the suffragettes supporter, “Miss Nell” chained herself to the railing of Buckingham palace to make a point about woman requiring a vote.

As well as this the suffragists movement was also making statements and bringing attention to their movement by non-violent, non-aggressive and non-dangerous rallies and public speeches.

Third wave of feminism:

The third wave started with the generation gap of the 1960-70s where they re-stated and challenged the normal ideas of feminists and sexism. While they also fought for woman of different races, ethnicity and class to be treated better due to the fact that they were being split up and unfairly treated. This is called being “intersectional” and it is the idea of having overlapping, intersecting oppressions, like being black, lower class, gay and a female would be a intersectional feminist and your opinion also matters, not just middle class white females.

Naomi Wolf coined the phrase “Third wave of Feminism” in the 1990s and claimed that the third wave was about the younger generation carrying on feminism, growing out of old habits and traditions and making their own mistakes, raising their own leaders and making their own ideas of what need to be changed in the world about woman getting treated differently.

Lastly it seems to be that feminism doesn’t want to be only about the pay gap, or what men think, its about the gender as a whole, who you are, how you are profiled, how you are seen, it needs to be worked on and that’s why feminism exists.

Feminist Critical Thinking, Institution, Representation, Theory

feminism notes

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1st wave feminism 

‘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‘. 

2nd wave 

‘the feminist literary criticism of today is the product of the women’s movement of the 1960’s’ 

Indeed feminist critical thought became much more prominent and pronounced during the counter cultural movements of the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, which heralded, among other changes: the facilitation of of birth control and divorce, the acceptance of abortion and homosexuality, the abolition of hanging and theatre censorship, and the Obscene Publications Act (1959) – which led to the Chatterly trial. Nevertheless, 

This period is often termed second wave feminism – after the first wave of feminism, which was galvanised by organisations such as, the British women’s suffrage committee (1867), international women’s committee.

In contrast, ‘at the beginning of the 1970’s the Women’s Liberation Movement set great store by the process of consciousness raising’, ‘influencing everyday conduct and attitudes.’ and ‘exposing the mechanisms of patriarchy, that is, the cultural ‘mind-set’ in men and women which perpetuated sexual inequality’ . 

3rd wave 

Third-wave feminism began in the early 1990s, it was a response to the generation gap between the feminist movement of the 1960’s and ’70’s, challenging and re-contextualising 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. 

According to Barker and Jane (2016), third wave feminism, which is regarded as having begun in the mid-90’s has 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

3rd wave- Niomi Wolf:

3rd to 4th wave feminist critical thinking

The shift in critical feminist studies that reconciles exploitation against empowerment illustrates the shift in feminist thinking towards the 3rd Wave of feminist thought, see for example, groups such as Third Wave Foundation.

However, a 4th wave feminism also looked to explore these contradictory arguments and further sought to recognise and use the emancipatory tools of new social platforms to connect, share and develop new perspectives, experiences and responses to oppression, ‘tools that are allowing women to build a strong, popular, reactive movement online‘ As such, 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.

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feminist critical thinking

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

‘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 1981:13)

1st wave feminism included the facts of womens rights not being equal to men’s and the lack of inequality.~ Barry

2nd wave feminism during counter cultural movements becoming more prominent and pronounced.

‘the feminist literary criticism of today is the product of the women’s movement of the 1960’s’(Barry 2017:123)

‘rebellion of younger women against what was perceived as the prescriptive, pushy and ‘sex negative’ approach of older feminists.’ (344)Barker and Jane (2016 p. 344)

‘a product of the unresolved feminist sex wars – the conflict between the women’s movement and the sexual revolution‘ .Ariel Levy (2006:74)

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 (2018:50)

you cannot ‘understand Black women’s experiences of discrimination by thinking separately about sex discrimination and race discrimination’ (ibid)Sigle-Rushton & Lindström, 2013 p131

identity can be a site of contest and revision‘Butler (2004:19)

‘all this should not be seen as a straightforward displacement of dominant conservative attitudes‘ .(Johnathon Dollimore 1983:59)

characteristics of third wave feminism~ (barker and Jane)~

  • 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
Feminist Critical Thinking, Representation, Theory

Feminist Critical Thinking

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

First Wave Feminism

First started with the Suffragettes and International Alliance of Women. Women across the world started to realise that they should have as much chances at success as men. Virginia Woolf created a fantasy character as William Shakespeare’s sister as a metaphor for this and how if William was born a female, the world would have missed out on a major part of history. Basically highlighting the fact that we also have missed out of many other crucial parts of history as women weren’t allowed to be educated and read/write. They had great potential but never used it as they were females and didn’t have the same opportunities as males.

Second Wave Feminism

Simone de Beauvoir wrote a book that came out in the 1940s containing ideas of women not being allowed to vote, and when they were able to, they were told to ‘go home and make babies’. “If you’re around long enough, you will see that every victory turns into a defeat.” There was a massive trend on twitter in 2017 called the #MeToo movement.

Singular, one-dimensional

Third Wave Feminism

Naomi Wolf- Early 1990s, is a lot more fluid in sexuality and ways women express themselves, major age difference to second wave feminism.

Intersectionality- Pluralism, multi-dimensional

Judith Butler- Gender was never there from the start, it is believed to be who you are but in reality it’s constructed based on things you like and how you act.

Feminist Critical Thinking

FEMINIST CRITICAL THINKING

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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

1st Wave of Feminism

  • Late 1800’s to 1920’s
  • Suffragette and Suffragists movements. International Council of Women
  • Women campaigned for basic rights that were not given to them such as the right to vote, to go to school/university, to handle their own finances, to own a house etc.
  • Women were completely dominated and under the suffrage of their male counterpart and were not able to have any sort of freedoms or identity.

2nd Wave of Feminism

  • 1960/70’s
  • Societal counteraction towards previous feminist ideas and positive change sparked a feminist cultural movement that began to shift societies views on abortion, homosexuality, birth control and divorce etc.
  • Singular, one dimensional. Centred around middle class, white feminists.

3rd Wave of Feminism

  • Early 1990’s
  • Response to generation gap and contradictions between the 2nd wave of feminist movement
  • Naomi Wolf coined the term ‘3rd Wave Feminism’ in the 1990’s.
  • The third-wave sees women’s lives as intersectional, demonstrating a pluralism towards race, ethnicity, class, religion, gender and nationality when discussing 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
  • The re-appropriation of derogatory terms such as ‘slut’ and ‘bitch’ and of how women are often over-sexualised by men, not only in the media but in reality.
  • Sex positivity
  • Ariel Levy invented the term ‘Raunch Culture’; Women who have previously been objectified take this and objectify and over-sexualise themselves in order to promote sex positivity and celebrate freedom of femininity.
  • “Raunch culture = 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 and Stephenson

4th Wave of Feminism

  • Began in around 2010-12 when the use of social media grew considerably.
  • Increasing use of social media platforms and online campaigns to promote feminist ideas.

“tools that are allowing women to build a strong, popular, reactive movement online” – Cochrane

  • Campaigns such as the #MeToo movement allowed victims of sexual violence and assault to come forward and share experiences in a safe and supportive network. And the #FreetheNipple campaign allowed women to express their own bodies in ways they want to rather than having this dictated by men. Miley Cyrus endorsed these campaigns alongside her radical music video ‘Wrecking Ball’ in which she takes ownership of the over-sexualisation of femininity and use it as a way to express her own identity.