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Feminist Critical Thinking, Notes, Representation

third wave feminism

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third wave feminism is different to feminism of the 60s (similar but different) third wave feminism tries to embrace plural identity’s 9multiple identitys0 this is called intersectionality

‘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)

  1. an emphasis on the differences among women due to race, ethnicity, class, nationality, religion
  2. individual and do-it-yourself (DIY) tactics
  3. fluid and multiple subject positions and identities
  4. cyberactivism
  5. the reappropriation of derogatory terms such as ‘slut’ and ‘bitch’ for liberatory purposes
  6. sex positivity

forth wave 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 (2018:50)

 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‘ (Cochrane, 2013).

Notes, Representation

DAVID GAUNTLET

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Fluid of identity

Fluid of identity is having the choice to change the way you come across however you like. If you don’t want to look a certain way fluid of identity creates the meaning of being able to change that and change how you perceive yourself as a person. Not only that Fluid of identity also means having the fluidity to change the way you act to something favoured or to something which can be categorised as normal. Fluid of Identity is the freedom to change who you are as a person from how you look to how you act if you prefer to-do that.

Constructed identity– This is when a person builds up their identity and it slightly changes, depending on their peers/audiences. Men and women are becoming more equal and there is also no longer a specific gender to belong too, people classify themselves as ‘they’ or ‘them’ and that is the identity our generation has allowed people to do (more or less) . Magazines, Movies or the opinion leaders who dominate our society (influencers, celebs) all help us to “construct” this identity for ourselves suggesting ways of living in todays society.

Negotiated identity– A negotiated identity is a balance between our own desires and meeting the expectations of others. it is us showing how we balance or different identities around others.

Harry styles

the global beauty industry was valued at $511bn, with celebrity brands taking an increasingly significant share of the market.

he is adamant that his venture is more than a celebrity endorsement. “I don’t think that putting someone’s face on something sells a bad product,” Styles says in the interview.

  1. Pleasing includes, nail polishes, illuminating primer serum and a dual purpose eye, lip oil.
  2. Harry is trying to aim his brand towards men to make “makeup is for women” a myth, to encourage men to also wear makeup and no feel ashamed.
  3. Aim – “bring joyful experiences and products that excite the senses and blur the boundaries”. Styles announced that he hoped to “dispel the myth of a binary existence”.
  4. Disingenuous
  5. Could be just doing it for the money?
  6. Popularity?

Judith Butler describes gender as “an identity instituted through a stylized repetition of acts”. In other words, it is something learnt through repeated performance.

How useful is this idea in understanding gender is represented in both the Score and Maybelline advertising campaigns?

It is saying that there really is no gender and that its all actions that where constantly repeated and created a normal for that gender to do in the old days these repetitive acts made it normal for the woman to not work and just clean and cook and for the male to make the money and work

Exam Prep, Notes

revision notes

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“Male and female identities are not naturally configured” – You can choose who you want to be (butler).

“Popular culture within the process of constructing their sense of identity” – The general idea of genders is constructed by opinions and stereotypes.

“Audiences learn how to perform gender via the media.” – The media in today’s society constructs our own gender identity for us.

“Society constructs a binary view of gender” – A binary view is a social construct made up of two parts that are framed as complete opposites (e.g. male and female).

“Audiences realise they can change their identities”  – They can be whoever you want to be without being held back by society.

Feminist Critical Thinking, Notes, Representation, Theory

feminist critical thinking

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First Wave of Feminism – Suffrage

‘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

  • The formation of the Suffragettes, a women’s rights activist group, in 1903 generated a huge positive impact on the role of women in society at the time. They campaigned for votes for middle-class, property-owning women, highlighting the lack of equality between men and women.
  • Virginia Woolf’s publication of ‘A Room of One’s Own’ (1929) was a key pivotal moment in feminist history. Whilst the theory she fabricated seemed basic, is laid the foundations of what feminism has evolved into today.

Second Wave of Feminism – Reproductive Rights

  • The Women’s Liberation Movement emerged in the late 1960s and proceeded into the late 1980s primarily in the western world.
  • The movement was a political alignment of women and feminism intellectualism which touched upon the facilitation of of birth control and divorce, the acceptance of abortion and homosexuality, the abolition of hanging and theatre censorship, the Obscene Publications Act (1959) and exposed the corrupt mechanisms of the patriarchy.

Third Wave of Feminism – Identity & Magnitude

‘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)

  • Coined by Naomi Wolf in the 1990s, the third wave of feminism demonstrated a pluralism towards  race, ethnicity, class, religion, gender and nationality when discussing feminism, rather than just the role of women in society.
  • whilst there was still some aspects of politics, it mostly touched upon the representation and identity of women and was therefore It was a lot more broad than previous waves of feminism.
  • The introduction of social media allowed ideas to be quickly widespread.
  • Ariel Levy states, in her book Female Chauvinist Pigs (2005), that raunch cultures from one perspective is the idea of liberation involves new freedoms for sexual exhibition, experimentation and presentation, however from another perspective it may well encourage a hyper-sexualised climate that over-sexualises women whilst also encouraging women to over-sexualise other women and themselves.

Fourth Wave of Feminism – Empowerment

  • Evolved from the third wave of feminism after the development of the technology era.
  • 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‘ (Cochrane 2013). As such, from the radical stance of #MeToo to the #FreeTheNimple campaign, which Miley Cyrus endorsed and supported 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.
Feminist Critical Thinking, Notes

feminist critical thinking

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three waves of feminism, the 1960’s was the second.

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‘‘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 Feminism

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

(Barry 2017:123)

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,

‘all this should not be seen as a straightforward displacement of dominant conservative attitudes‘ .

(Johnathon Dollimore 1983:59)

3rd Wave Feminism -Raunch Culture

‘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)

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.

  • 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)

‘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)

Intersectionality:

‘In an attempt to understand what it means to be oppressed as ‘a woman’, some feminist scholars sought to isolate gender oppression from other forms of oppression’. Put another way, there was a tendency to be either ‘preoccupied with the experiences of white middle-class women or to ignore completely the experiences other women’ (Sigle-Rushton & Lindström, 2013, 129)

bell hook advocates media literacy, the need to engage with popular culture to encouraging us all to ‘think critically’ to ‘change our lives’; ethnicity and race, see for example here work ‘Cultural Criticism and Transformation

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.

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

Notes

Third wave feminism

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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.

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

  1. an emphasis on the differences among women due to race, ethnicity, class, nationality, religion
  2. individual and do-it-yourself (DIY) tactics
  3. fluid and multiple subject positions and identities
  4. cyberactivism
  5. the reappropriation of derogatory terms such as ‘slut’ and ‘bitch’ for liberatory purposes
  6. 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’ – Hendry & Stephenson (2018:50)

Hook: Multicultural Intersectionality

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.

Queer Theory

In the UK the pioneering academic presence in queer studies was the Centre for Sexual Dissidence 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.

Exam Prep, Feminist Critical Thinking, Notes

feminism

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first wave feminism, questioning why women cant do certain things. People seeking equality started about 150 years ago.

second wave feminism– 60s and about civil rights. In the 60s there was a big social change and a campaign about equal rights for women. 1960s, Jean Kilbourne and Laura Mulvey. 1867 suffragettes. Council of women in 1888.

Third wave 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

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’

fourth 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‘ (Cochrane, 2013). 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.

Intersectionality:

‘In an attempt to understand what it means to be oppressed as ‘a woman’, some feminist scholars sought to isolate gender oppression from other forms of oppression’. Put another way, there was a tendency to be either ‘preoccupied with the experiences of white middle-class women or to ignore completely the experiences other women’ (Sigle-Rushton & Lindström, 2013, 129). It is from this that the development and articulation of intersectionality began to take shape. The early ideas around intersectionality can be traced to theoretical developments from the 1980’s, see for example, the work by Kimberlé Crenshaw (1989) or some of the propositions asserted around Queer Theory (see below) that brings together a set of complex ideas around the ‘multidimensionality of subjectivity and social stratification’

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).

identity can be a site of contest and revision‘

GENDER IS A PERFORMANCE

We perform a gender we aren’t actually one gender.

Notes, Representation

Feminism Critical Thinking Notes

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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 characteristic

The first wave of feminism was around 1848 to the 1920’s, which included the Suffragette and Suffragists movements where women campaigned for basic rights such as an education.

The second wave of feminism came later, around halfway through the 20th century. Changes such as the facilitation of of birth control and divorce, the acceptance of abortion and homosexuality and the abolition of hanging and theatre censorship arose during this period (around the 60s-70s) due to cultural counter movements in society.

Third wave feminism is different from feminism in the 60s, yet still similar. It tries to embrace pluralism (having multiple identities) which is shown in the Maybelline advert, and these plural identities are know as intersectionality.

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

Fourth wave feminism is very similar to third wave, and it is a rather grey area as to where third ends and fourth begins. Overall, fourth involves the use of modern online social platforms to spread and increase the influence of these ideas.

Audience, Exam Prep, Notes, Research

revision notes– GAUNTLET & BUTLER

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Judith Butler quotes:

“Biological anatomies do not determine our gender” – This is a basic idea that although someone can be born with male or female anatomy, it doesn’t determine what gender that person feels like, a mental thing.

“Male and female identities are not naturally configured” – It does not matter in which way you act, your identity is not pre-determined.

“Gender is not solely determined by primary experiences during childhood” – Just because you acted a certain way during childhood, as you mature your identity can change, you sexual orientation can change.

“Micro performances that continuously signal our identity to ourselves and to others” – The way we act, whatever choice we make or the way we decide to portray ourselves, in small ways, is a form of out identity being shown.

“Myths reinforce male power as the norm because males are the more naturally dominant gender” – Shows that a male dominant society is factual and proven.

David Gauntlet quotes:

“Tradition dominates the notion of who we are and is heavily determined by long standing social forces” – Commonplace traditions and ideas that are instilled in out cultures heavily determines who we are when we grow up, including out gender identity.

“We are transitioning from a society in which our identities were constructed via rigid traditions to a distinctly different phase that he calls ‘late modernity” – Our ideologies based from our cultures and traditions are slowly becoming less important and less involved with who we are in modern times.

“Marketing and advertising agencies construct multiple possibilities of who we might be through products branding” – Modern and post advertising manipulate and change how we view the world and certain topics and creates possibilities of who we might become when we mature.

“Social roles of gender in a traditionally ordered society” – Society orders and puts either gender in certain gender roles.

“Transformations offered suggest that our identities are not fixed” – In games, you begin as the weakest version of themselves and as you progress you gain happiness, this gives motivation to find and change who we are

Notes, Representation, Research

harry styles on identity for the guardian

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This is Pleasing: Harry Styles sets out to ‘dispel the myth of a binary existence’

By Karen Dacre – Nov 2021

‘the mission of this venture is to “bring joyful experiences and products that excite the senses and blur the boundaries”. Styles announced that he hoped to “dispel the myth of a binary existence”.’

‘this brand is about celebrating what is already there and encouraging customers to be themselves.’

‘In July, the global beauty industry was valued at $511bn’