Identities: applying feminism

Media factsheet #86


1) What are the five types of feminism outlined on the first page of the Factsheet?

Radical Feminism=The type of feminism that see the cause of women's oppression as men. They conduct extreme protests to get their points across

Liberal Feminism = The type of  feminism is mainly concerned with gender socialisation in order to show that gender roles are not biologically determined

Marxist- Feminism= This feminist approach looks women's oppression to capitalism and the class system

Black  Feminism= this approach is primarily concerned with black and Asian women's experiecnes of oppression and exploitation

Postmodern  Feminism= This type of  Feminism is associated with third wave feminists. It acknowledges the 
diversity amongst women and encourages individual women to find feminist ideas that combine with their own experiences.

2) Which category would Judith Butler fit into? What about Angela McRobbie? Laura Bates and Everyday Sexism? Explain your answers.

Judith Butler= Liberal Feminism, gender roles not being biologically fixed 

McRobbie = Post modern feminism, empowering and women taking control 

Laura Bates= looked at subverting Marxist feminists

3) What was the difference between suffragists and suffragettes? Which approach do you agree with?

Suffragists was the more passive side of the movement. It involved legally agreed protests whereas the suffragettes could be describes as the more radical feminist as they engaged with violent protests and took more radical action to get there right to vote.

4) What was Laura Mulvey's argument regarding Hollywood film? Do you agree with it? Why?

I It looked at how women were being objectified and that they were filmed in the eyes of men, this brought about the idea of the male gaze. I think to an extent this is true and that Hollywood displays the more attractive parts of women and their cleavage in hope that it would appeal to more men especially.

5) Watch this YouTube video extract on Jean Kilbourne's Killing Us Softly series and list five examples she gives of the media objectifying women:

• TV guides (Opera's head on another women's body)
• TV advertisements ( Loreal advert)
• Magazines (glamour)
• Beauty knows no pain advert

6) What is Killbourne's argument regarding the representation of women in advertising?

The representation of women in the media is so mediated that it provides young women and others a highly over-exaggerated representation of them. For women it makes them believe they to can look like the women they see on TV or in magazines but its just false hope because women in the media and in fashion magazines are took apart and put back together again with impossible features. Killbourne talks about airbrushing in the digital age and how one image of one women can actually be made up of several women and the editors pick out the best features.

7) What is Naomi Wolf's argument in The Beauty Myth?

Part of it looks how Men's opinion's of women are changing because of the myth that is presented to them in adverts and magazines and it shows the standards that a woman should adhere to, to look beautiful.

8) Why is the representation of women in music videos a controversial topic for feminists?

On the one hand some feminists argue that it can empower women by dressing provocatively as it is not for male pleasure but for their careers. However, other feminists see women in music video like the newer hip-hop ones as significantly degrading to women as it goes against what they believe feminism is as they think its just women parading about to attract male attention.

9) What is your view of female artists such as Nicki Minaj or Beyonce - do they empower women or reinforce sexist, patriarchal views?

Some of their more provocative videos in my opinion cannot be said to not reinforce sexist, patriarchal views because of the sheer nature of the videos and  how explicit some of them can be but the power of these two women some how make it empowering. These 2 women are portrayed in the media to be independent and they stand for something, for example even though Beyonce is a mother she still sings and preforms and stands for something. The meanings there videos carry are ambiguous, they can be explicit to attract men but also empower women. 

10) Has new and digital media given women an opportunity to challenge sexist views or is it simply another media platform for women to be oppressed? Explain your view.

To an extent yes, NDM has given women an opportunity to challenge sexist views, for example the everyday sexism project started by Laura Bates was made with just that in mind and it gave not just women but everyone to challenge sexism. But NDM has brought social media along with it and social media acts on sexism in two different ways, there are accounts that are pro sexism and are successful in starting movements and there are also accounts that despise feminists and there are trolls that fit into this group as well.