Category Archives: Representation

Filters

Author:
Category:
Postcolonialism, Representation

Paul Gilroy- POST COLONIAL THEORY

Leave a comment

Racial Otherness:

  • underlying presence within print media during 1970s-80s arguing that criminalised reputations of black males often stigmatised the black community.
  • wrote the book ” There ain’t no black in the union jack”
  • anxieties regarding immigrant behaviour in the UK after WW2 in which post-war wave of immigration from the West Indies.
  • draws attention to “Lurid newspaper reports of black pimps living off immoral earnings of white women”
  • produced racial representations that were “fixed in a matrix between the imagery of squalor and that of sordid sexuality”

Post Colonial melancholia- the deep rooted shame felt as a result of the loss of the British empire. In media the loss is deflected through nostalgia and anxieties surrounding British identity.

The story of UK race relations post W.W. 2- talks about the worries of immigrant behaviour in the post-war wave of immigration from the West Indies. Public associated these immigrants with the substandard living conditions.

Legacy of the empire- Gilroy suggests we live in “morbid culture of a once-imperial nation that has not been able to accept it’s inevitable loss of prestige”. British are undergoing a crisis of national identity. Empire immigrants and their descendants, is argued to be a visible representation of British power as it once was.

The Search for Albion – Albion England is nothing more than a distracting fantasy that disguises the reality of what Britain is really like – crippled by regional poverty and an ever-widening economic social divide.

Audience, Notes, Representation

Ghost Town CSP

Leave a comment

Youth culture as Political Protest

Key concepts: culture resistance, cultural hegemony, and subcultural theory

context: race relations, thatcher’s Britain

case studies: rock against racism, rock against sexism, and 2 tone

The Idea of Resistance and Political Protest: the political, personal and cultural are always intertwined

Cultural Hegemony:

Antonio Gramsci » Tom Shakespeare


● Antonio Gramsci: Italian philosopher writing in the 1930s
Key Terms:
● Hegemonic: dominant, ruling-class, power-holders
● Hegemonic culture: the dominant culture
● Cultural hegemony: power, rule, or domination maintained by ideological and cultural means.
● Ideology: worldview – beliefs, assumptions and values
● Cultural hegemony functions by framing the ideologies of the dominant social group as the only legitimate
ideology.
● The ideologies of the dominant group are expressed and maintained through its economic, political, moral,
and social institutions (like the education system and the media).
● These institutions socialise people into accepting the norms, values and beliefs of the dominant social
group.
● As a result, oppressed groups believe that the social and economic conditions of society are natural and
inevitable, rather than created by the dominant group.

Subcultural Theory: The Birmingham School (1970s)
● In the 1970s, a group of cultural theorists in Birmingham applied Gramsici’s theories to post-war
British working-class youth culture.

First to realise the punks in the 1970’s and different groups in schools

Positives of The Birmingham School’s subcultural theory:
● Validated the study of popular culture – previously considered superficial

Race:
● Bringing race into the picture in the 1980s, Paul Gilroy
highlighted how black youth cultures represented
cultural solutions to collectively experienced problems
of racism and poverty.

After WW2, many Caribbean men and women migrated to Britain seeking jobs.
They were faced with racism and discrimination, and found it difficult to find
employment and housing.
● During the 1970s and 1980s, the children of these Caribbean immigrants were
reaching adulthood. They were subject to violence and discrimination from both
the state and far right groups. However, they more likely to resist the racism of
British society compared with their parents.

Margaret Thatcher:
● Prime Minister 1979-1990
● Militant campaigner for middle-class interests
● In an 1978 interview: ‘British national identity
could be swamped by people with different
culture’
● Hardline attitude towards immigrantion
● Conservative Manifesto: ‘firm immigration control
for the future is essential if we are to achieve
good community relations’
● British Nationality Act of 1981: introduced a
series of increasingly tough immigration
procedures and excluded Asian people from
entering Britain.

Black Music as Resistance:
● Black music offered a means of articulating oppression and of challenging
what Gilory has termed, ‘the capitalist system of racial exploitation and
domination’.
● The lyrics of many reggae songs revolve around the black experience black
history, black consciousness of economic and social deprivation, and a
continuing enslavement in a racist ideology.
● Reggae is often sung in Jamaican patois, emphasising a black subjectivity
that is independent from white hegemony

Rock Against Sexism was British anti-sexist campaign that
used punk as a vehicle to challenge sexism, promoting
female musicians while challenging discrimination in the
music industry between 1979 and 1982.

2 Tone
● 2 Tone was a genre of British popular music, that fused punk with Jamaican reggae and ska music.
● The name of the genre derives from 2 Tone Records, a record label founded in 1979 by Jerry Dammers of The Specials, and
articulates a desire to transcend Britain’s racial divides.
● The bands on the Two Tone label were largely multicultural, for example the Specials, the Selecter, Madness, the Beat and the
Bodysnatchers. This was the practical realisation of the anti-discriminatory ambitions of Rock Against Racism. While RAR
brought black and white musicians onto the same stage, Two-Tone brought black and white musicians into the same bands.
● 2 Tone bands came to prominence during Margaret Thatcher’s first term in office as PM. The songs addressed the political
issues of the day: racism, sexism, violence, unemployment, youth culture, and were highly critical of the police, and the
authoritarian government.
● Similar to punk’s susceptibility to right-wing interpretation, 2 Tone also attracted the attention of right-wing youth. 2 Tone
concerts were often inflated by members of the National Front or British Movement, disputing gigs and Sieg Heiling. The
contradictions of race were reproduced and at times amplified in the tense atmospheres characteristic of 2 Tone gigs.

Feminist Critical Thinking, Representation, Theory

Feminist Critical Thinking

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

First wave of feminism :

  • Women’s Suffrage Committee (1867) / The international Council of women (1888) / the International Alliance of Women (1904) was the formation of the first wave of feminism.
  •  Mary Wollstonecraft (1792) – she was an English writer, philosopher, and advocate of women’s rights. She wrote the book, A Vindication of the Rights of Women, which argues that the educational system deliberately trained women to be frivolous and incapable and that if girls were allowed the same advantages as boys, women would be not only exceptional wives and mothers but also capable workers.

Second wave of feminism :

  • 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).
  • The Suffragettes were a organisation who fought / wanted governmental

Third Wave Feminism :

  • Third wave feminism came / begun by Naomi Wolf in the early 1990s through her book, as he had ideas and thoughts that there will be a third wave.
  • Third wave feminism is more alert and expression more, as well as having more thoughts and opinions on feminism.
  • third-wave sees women’s lives as intersectional, demonstrating a pluralism towards race, ethnicity, class, religion, gender and nationality when discussing feminism.
  • Began in the mid 90s
  • The characteristics of third wave feminism can be seen as 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 and sex positivity.
Representation

blinded by the light

Leave a comment

New Line Productions, Inc., doing business as New Line Cinema, is an American film production studio and a label of the Warner Bros. Pictures Group division of Warner Bros. Entertainment. It was founded in 1967 by Robert Shaye as an independent film distribution company, later becoming a film studio.

Warner Bros. Pictures[4] is an American film production studio and division of the Warner Bros. Pictures Group, a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Entertainment, which is owned by AT&T’s Warner Media. The studio is the flagship producer of live-action feature films within the Warner Bros

‘Blinded by the Light’, directed by Gurinder Chadha (known for 2002 film ‘Bend it like Beckham’), was released in January 2019.

Budget film that had a cost $15 million to make

The music is by Bruce Springsteen a well known American artist

True story about a young Pakistani boy growing up in 80s Britain

The film is regulated by BBFC

The movie has Social Media accounts such as Instagram, Facebook and Twitter to help the distribution by promoting it.

A ‘feel good jukebox musical film’ – description of Blinded by the Light film.

A mixture of independent and major production / distribution contexts, targeting towards a different audience to ‘indie’.

Indie – Produced outside the major film studio system, in addition to being produced and distributed by independent entertainment companies. 

Box office – $18.1 million

Initial release: January 27, 2019

Director: Gurinder Chadha

Music by: A. R. Rahman (Bruce Springsteen)

Production companies: Levantine Films; Ingenious; Bend It Films; Cornerstone Films

Notes, Representation

Judith Butler

Leave a comment

Judith Butler is an American philosopher and gender theorist. Butler’s work has influenced political philosophy, ethics, and the fields of third-wave feminism, queer theory, and literary theory. She argued that gender is a social construct, which is performed rather than adopted. Because gender identity is established through behaviour, there is a possibility to construct different genders via different behaviours. Butler offers a critique of the terms gender and sex as they have been used by feminists. Butler argues that feminism made a mistake in trying to make “women” a discrete, ahistorical group with common characteristics. Butler writes that this approach reinforces the binary view of gender relations. Butler believes that feminists should not try to define “women” and they also believe that feminists should “focus on providing an account of how power functions and shapes our understandings of womanhood not only in the society at large but also within the feminist movement. Judith herself is a lesbian, whose legally non-binary, and goes by she or they pronouns.

Essays, Feminist Critical Thinking, Representation
Leave a comment

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?

Most people believe gender is distinguished as just male and female however Butler says that it is played out and sometimes that causes misrepresentation like in the score advert women are sexualised and objectified however in the maybelline “boss up” advert there is a variety of identities. Butler is a gender theorist and says that gender is a performance where everyone is performing their own gender and that it’s a fluid of identity which David Gauntlett coined for his own. The use of identity isn’t based upon gender and I am going to discuss the representation of gender and identity in the Score and Maybelline adverts. 

In contrast to Butler, Laura Mulvey identifies the sexualisation of femininity and female characters compared to the male character that we identify with due to the lack of sexualisation and the addition of development and characteristics shown to deepen their character, in a lot of games and movies, Mulvey stated female characters are forced to identity with passive objects to be looked at and desired compared to men’s representation which is more focussed on how the characters body language reinforces the features they have- e.g. an assassin moving sneakily. She also has the idea that the majority of movie directors, game developers, big artists and key people in the media are men therefore we view media in a mans view hence the male gaze, an example would be in a film panning the camera on a sexualised female scene or in a media game exaggerations of female body parts overlooking how they’re actually meant to walk to show more depth to the character. This doesn’t mean male characters can’t be sexualised either- there’s just a stronger amount of female sexualisation- someone replaced popular oversexualised female poses with a boy doing it but that would still be viewing it in the male gaze. The male gaze supports the idea that a sexualised way of looking empowers men and sexualised women. 

The Score hair cream advert is an historical artefact from 1967, as such it can be examined productively by considering its historical, social and cultural contexts, particularly as it relates to gender roles, sexuality and the historical context of advertising techniques. 1967 can be seen as a period of slow transformation in western cultures with legislation about and changing attitudes to the role of women and men  in society, something that the advert can be seen to negotiate. The first wave of feminism can be described with a quotation ‘ 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 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.  The Score advert can be similarly linked to this idea because we can see a total of five female figures holding up the male figure giving us the assumption that the male is superior to the females. 

In addition, the idea of fluidity of identity by Gauntlett 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, fluidity 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.. For instance, gender is fluid, you can have the choice who to identify as. This supports Butler’s theory, who quotes “ Biological anatomies do not determine our gender”. She concludes that masculinity and femininity are not naturally given states, but instead  are maintained by individuals through everyday acts meaning that an individual is not born neither male nor female, however your gender defines you through your actions everyday. Gauntlett commented on the changing of representation of men and women in mainstream media. For example the depiction of the passive housewife throughout the twentieth century was being increasingly replaced by images of assertive women taking control of their lives, epitomised by the “girl power” endorsed by the Spice Girls. The representation of men being active and confident was giving way to a more introspective and emotionally aware version of masculinity. Despite the old binary representations still finding their way to the front covers of magazines, now there is a “great diversity of identities”. In this way, we do not always have a fixed identity because we are willing to adapt to new cultural norms. 

This theory is not implied in the score advert, however it can be seen in the more contemporary modern advert from Maybelline, this is because in the Maybelline “boss up” advert we can assume the representation of the female gender has adapted over time, we can make this assumption due to the reason that the gender roles are are suggested to be more equal. Within the advert you can see a homosexual male celebrity with what is thought to be feminine characteristics, also in the advert there is also a female character who is depicted up feel like a “boss” after using the product, this is found towards the end of the advert. This can dispute the idea that there are fixed gender roles and the historical idea that men are superior to women. The theory of raunch culture is also demonstrated in this advert due because the female character is not being sexualised in any way within the advert. “Raunch culture is the sexualised performance of women in the media that can play into male stereotypes of women as high sexually available. 

The maybelline advert is seen to demonstrate the third and fourth wave of feminism. Third wave feminism was coined by Naomi Wolf as a response to the generation gap between the feminist movement of the 1960s and 1970s, challenging and re-contextualsing some of the definitions of femininity that grew out.  It saw women’s lives as intersectional and demonstrated a pluralism towards race, ethnicity, class, religion, gender and nationality when discussing feminism. It can be described as the ‘rebellion of younger women against what was perceived as the prescriptive, pushy and ‘sex negative’ approach of older feminists. This concept is demonstrated by the Maybelline advert because of the female representation within the advertisement is not being sexualised or objectified in any way meaning that she opposes the stereotype of what the first wave of feminism suggests what it means to be a ‘female’. 

In conclusion, I believe that Butler’s description of gender as “ an identity instituted through a stylized repetition of acts ” helps people to comprehend how gender is represented to a more clear extent in the Maybelline advert in comparison to the score advert due to the fact that the score hair cream advert opposes the idea that gender is not determined by biological genders.

Essays, Exam Prep, Feminist Critical Thinking, Maybelline, Representation, Score

Essay

Leave a comment

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?

My aim for this essay is to present all the knowledge about wave feminism and the gender as performance such as Butler and the representation of the two other CSPs Score and Maybelline. I will argue that looking at the construction of being male and female is all about civil rights and should be talked more about femininity.

I would suggest that gender as Performance by Butler is “Our gendered identities are not naturally given but constructed through repetition and ritual.” where individuals change their identities over and over again through the act of others. Judith Butler discusses the ideas of gender representation such as gender is fluid, changeable, and plural a set of categories to be played out and performed by individual subjects in individual moments in time and space. I would also suggest that feminist critical thinking emphasis on the differences among women due to race, ethnicity, class, nationality, religion and fluid and multiple subject positions and identities, therefore it suggests that in the mid 90’s they have low recognisable characteristics.

I would like to explain how theoretical approaches around gender, feminism and representation can be linked to the CSP’s.

First and foremost Mulvey gives us the idea that the male gaze is the act of depicting women and the world, in the visual arts which refers back to the 3rd wave feminists. Mulvey says “It is said that analysing pleasure, or beauty, destroys it.” for instance the female viewer must experience the narrative secondarily, with the male. Kilbourne also assumes the connection between the advertisements of women in public health issues which include violence , eating disorders and addiction. Woolf looks into the third wave feminism about the response of challenges and input about some of the definitions of femininity that grew out of that earlier period.

To begin with the theoretical ideas of Score, it considers its historical, social and cultural contexts, as it relates to gender roles, sexuality and the historical context of advertising techniques. The Score advert was produced in the year of decriminalisation of homosexuality and as such, the representation of heterosexuality could be read as signalling more anxiety than might first appear. Butler believes that there can be no gender identity as it can produce a series of effects as well as Woolf’s point on femininity.

Maybelline afterwards touches on the issue of gender representation, ethnicity and lifestyle. The ad, like its 1960s counterpart, uses an aspirational image showing two friends who do not conform to masculine and feminine ideals but are nonetheless powerful: happy in their own skin, confident in their bodies and their sexuality. 

The historical knowledge about societal changes in 1967 as it relates to gender roles, sexuality and the historical context of advertising techniques. In 1967 it is believed to be a time of slow transformation in western cultures with legislation about changing women’s attitudes, along as men in society. This was a way to see the advert to be negotiated.

In the late 1960’s and between the early 1970’s, feminist critical thought became much more prominent where a greater acceptance of birth control and divorce, abortion and homosexuality was pronounced during the counter cultural movements.

I would like to announce the idea of the 2nd wave feminism to be approached by resulting in the term of second wave feminism which was directed by organisations.

Jonathon Dollimore gave the idea of ‘all this should not be seen as a straightforward displacement of dominant conservative attitudes‘, where in the early part of the 20th Century, the international alliance of women worked to get women the right to vote.

The Score advert was produced in the year of decriminalisation of homosexuality and as such, the representation of heterosexuality could be read as signalling more anxiety than might first appear. The reference to colonialist values can also be linked to social and cultural contexts of the ending of Empire.  I believe they use a mixture of indexical symbols as it relates to a jungle as they are dressed in safari clothing and there is a platform where the material is a leopard which could suggest they are in a forest as they also have the bushes or trees behind them as there background.

After the recent demise of gay icon George Michael, several gay men had paid tribute to the singer recalling how he was a huge inspiration when they were growing up and helped make their coming out easier, furthermore Judith Butler suggests that that’s why people behave different so they fit into society. I also believe that in the Maybelline advert the whole campaign suggesting is youthful and empowering such as the slogans like ‘let’s get bossed out’. The advert emphasises a lot on the product itself. When watching the advert they try to approach by using the colour gold which illustrates how they are trying to make the product sound like it will shine your world and make you look very satisfactory towards others.

Referring back to Maybelline, society in nowadays makes the attempt to understand what it means to be oppressed as a woman. This is where the experiences of white middle-class or to ignore the completely experiences the other women occurred. The development and articulation of intersectionality began to take place because of this cause.

My counter argument is about Maybelline as I believe that their product doesn’t give the impression to attract the audience to buy the product. This is because noticing them in a new York apartment with some mascara in a golden luggage doesn’t engage the audience enough to know if it is a good product or not. In other words putting on mascara doesn’t change your whole appearance, therefore there should be no need for the colour gold to be shown throughout the advert.

The score post is more contradictory as its audience is aimed at the male gander suggesting that it is quite decriminalisation of homosexuality and as such, the representation of heterosexuality could be read as signalling more anxiety than might first appear. The idea that you will get what you have always wished for suggests that the 3 women at the back suggest that the man are getting their attention from them and the 2 women at the front suggest that they could be showing off on their looks and how lucky the man is which could also explain that the advert is sexualising them.

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 the male and female gender.

Exploring the notion of intersectionality, it gives us the response that feminism is not universal, singular or homogeneous as it is a reductionist and essentialist way of seeing the world itself. Bell Hook shows us the way of exploring the ideas of the world by highlighting the concepts such as ‘female’, ‘feminist’, ‘feminine’, which approaches sexuality, class, age, education, religion and ability.

In conclusion, I was able to identify and explain the connections and representation about Score and Maybelline and its link towards Judith Butler and how feminism is shown.

Essays, Maybelline, Representation, Score

ESSAY

Leave a comment

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?

To start this essay I want to quote Judith Butler who wrote: “Gender does not exist inside the body” – this implies that the biology of someone’s gender does not determine the way they see themselves and the way they want others to. Indeed, Judith Butler describes gender as “an identity instituted through a stylized repetition of acts”. In other words, it is something learnt through repeated performance. 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

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.

In contrast, more recently, “Me Too” was initially used in this context on social media in 2006, on Myspace, by sexual assault survivor and activist Tarana Burke.[4] Harvard University published a case study on Burke, called “Leading with Empathy: Tarana Burke and the Making of the Me Too Movement”.[5]

Similar to other social justice and empowerment movements based upon breaking silence, the purpose of “Me Too”, as initially voiced by Burke as well as those who later adopted the tactic, is to empower sexually assaulted individuals through empathy and solidarity through strength in numbers, especially young and vulnerable women, by visibly demonstrating how many have survived sexual assault and harassment, especially in the workplace

If we consider David Gauntlett and the theory of 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.

We can see in Maybelline’s large scale adverts since 1999, they’ve used curvy, oversexualised and glamourous woman to advertise their products. Resulting from this, Maybelline goes against Judith Butlers work and conjoins the stereotypes of genders to their products to increase sales and interest, they have done this by making it seem like woman are the only people to use makeup, however this isn’t true men have been starting to use makeup and expressing themselves through it, for example bands like Fall out boy, and celebrities like Johnny Depp have used and continue to use eyeliner when turning up to social events and shows. However as Judith Butler comments “gender is not a identity instituted through a stylized repetition of acts” and Maybelline is ignoring the idea of men using their products and wasn’t advertising them towards other genders until 2017 after they realised other genders had started to wear and buy makeup more regularly and it becoming more normal. Most importantly after they hired Manny Gutierrez to advertise their products for all genders it displayed that Maybelline was able to change their adverts and give the idea to their customers that they can display who they are and who they want to be through Maybelline’s products.

In addition, we see the idea represented in the score printed advert “Score liquid hair groom” made in 1967, displays a recently shaven man who is being praised by five different women, who have been sexualised to be a submissive of the dominant signifier. The advert is manipulated to be desired as men wouldn’t be able to resist the sexualised appearance of the females in this advert, giving a sense of what the males can potentially ‘get’, these persuasive techniques of temptation of women gives men the curiosity of buying the product. The audiences opinion of this advert has changed due to the change in society and the way society views ideas. In 1967, when this advert was made, it was deemed normal for women to show skin and be the less dominant gender, and black men and women to not be in advertisement, however over the last few years, the change in society, diversity and the popular ideas have changed the way products are advertised. This is due to the recognition and understanding of sexism, racism and homophobia. The representational idea of different social groups in this photograph, is the idea that men are the dominant gender and women follow masculinity. As well, the idea of this product advertisement is to encourage men to purchase the product for the opportunity to have a swarm of women admiring them. Moreover, this male liquid hair groom links in to the idea of Judith’s Butlers quote “an identity instituted through a stylized repetition of acts” because the product is advertised and displayed for men’s use, typically expressing that women do not use shaving cream. However, women also use men’s products and proves that it is not solely a males action.

Overall, Maybelline and Score are both linked to Judith Butlers description of gender as “an identity instituted through a stylized repetition of acts”, by the way these companies advertise their products, targeting at specific audiences such as men or women.

Feminist Critical Thinking, Representation, Theory

first wave of feminism

Leave a comment

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.

“Me Too” was initially used in this context on social media in 2006, on Myspace, by sexual assault survivor and activist Tarana Burke.[4] Harvard University published a case study on Burke, called “Leading with Empathy: Tarana Burke and the Making of the Me Too Movement”.[5]

Similar to other social justice and empowerment movements based upon breaking silence, the purpose of “Me Too”, as initially voiced by Burke as well as those who later adopted the tactic, is to empower sexually assaulted individuals through empathy and solidarity through strength in numbers, especially young and vulnerable women, by visibly demonstrating how many have survived sexual assault and harassment, especially in the workplace

Feminist Critical Thinking, Notes, Representation

third wave feminism

Leave a comment

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).