Feminism

Feminism 

• Feminists seek to challenge the unfair and unequal distribution of power and wealth patriarchal society.

• A patriarchal society is one based on male rule and domination.

• Feminists are particularly interested in the contribution made by the media to society's dominant ideas about gender roles.

Gender roles 

• The mass media play a crucial tole in teaching us how to behave and think in ways that our culture finds acceptable.
• Sex is biological, gender is cultural.

Traditional Gender Stereotypes 

Femininity

• Caring
• Nurturing
• Emotional
• Domestic
• Sensitive 
• Passive 
• Soft
• Gentle 

Masculinity 

• Tough
• Providing 
• Rational
• Public/ work orientated 
• Thick skinned 
• Active 
• Rough
• Hard

Stereotyping 

• Feminist have made great progress in attempting to get ride of those traditional stereotypes.
• However, some may argue that they have been replaced by equally dis-empowering stereotypes for example Vicky Pollard.

Laura Mulvey (1975)

• Visual pleasure and narrative cinema.
• The 'male gaze'.
• Much of our media output assumes the spectator is male or constructs reality from a male POV.
• Women see themselves through the eyes of men.
• In order for a woman to experience pleasure from the film, she has to position herself in a similar role to the male view enjoying the spectacle .

Post Feminism

• Celebrates the diversity of identity available to women
• Positive endorsement of consumerism
• Sometimes seen as 'anti feminism'
• If women know that femininity is a construct, then they can play with its signs, symbols and identities from a position of power
• Semiotic guerrilla warfare - meaning of signifiers such as high heels/ lipstick/ designer clothes can be shifted powerless to powerful.

The use of this image helps signify and show that woman are allowed to do things that they couldn't do before feminism was introduced.

First Wave Feminism

• Mid 19th - Early 20th Century, however in 1918 women achieved grating the vote to women over the age of 30, also 1928 women received to vote on equal terms as men. 
• Fight for social and political equality.
• Struggle for women's suffrage (the right to vote).
• Key concerns included education, employment and marriage laws.
• Successes - Higher education for women, married women's property rights and the widening of access to professions such as medicine.

Second Wave Feminism

• Liberation movement of 1960's and 1970's 
• Largely to do with struggles for equal play, equal rights at work and better representation in public bodies such as Parliament .
• Access to contraception: increasing use of contraception and the growth of women's power in decisions about having children.
• Highly publicised activism.
• Stereotype of humourless, dowdy, man-hating feminist.

Third Wave Feminism 

• 1980's and 1990's
• Less emphasis on battles for equality 
• More emphasis on the positive nature of ambiguity and difference (not all women are the same, it doesn't matter)
• Spice girls and girl power 
• Empowering heroines - Buffy and Xena 

My opinion

In my opinion feminism is a very strong and serious subject, however because I am a male viewer with my thoughts and views I will never go under the discrimination and hassle of being a women back in the 1950's and so on. But on the other hand I definitely feel sympathy for the women due to how they was treated as human beings, they wasn't treated in any shape of form the same way men were being treated, women were looked down upon such as another species; in my opinion I think that this is disgusting because both genders should be always be treated with respect and to be able to live a life normally without hassle from the opposite sex. However in my music magazine I want to follow and make sure that both genders are treated equally and fairly, I will make sure that my music magazine appeals to both genders when they read the magazine. I don't want my magazine to just appeal to one gender I believe that if both genders enjoy the magazine then I would be able to sell more when producing the magazine.  

Classic Weak-woman Scenes in the films and TV:

• Man grabs woman by upper arm. Woman exclaims, "Your hurting me!"
• Man suddenly appears from around corner. Woman gasps and exclaims "You scared me!"
• Man and woman are arguing. Man's voice raises and he steps towards her. Woman backs up. Man continues slowly moving towards her(no weapons, by the way, not even a raised fist) and woman continues backing away.
• Man and women are running away from gunmen in a forest. Man's hand is always grabbed onto woman's wrist and she slows man down. (A woman cannot run beyond her natural speed if a man has her wrist; A woman's or man's, fastest sprint can only be accomplished with both arms pumping freely!)
• Woman is running from man in woods. Woman trips and falls, and man catches up.
• Woman is hit by man's backhand and falls to floor. Whimpering, she then slithers across floor away from man.