1/55
Looks like no tags are added yet.
Name | Mastery | Learn | Test | Matching | Spaced |
---|
No study sessions yet.
Module 7: Representations of Gender
Sociology of Gender
Socially constructed, as seen through the representation of gender roles (which we learn from our family dynamics, then turn to pop culture for reference)
One’s culture and cultural norms are the primary socialization factors grooming an individual’s gender and gendered behaviour
EX: Women may biologically be able to give birth to children but they don’t instinctively know how to cook → BUT posts on female athletes include comments of “ok, but can she cook?” or “tell her to go make me a sandwich” (misogyny and sexism, stating her “rightful” job is in a domestic space, not a male-dominanted field)
Module 7: Representations of Gender
Pop Culture’s Effect on Gender
A socialization tool that presents and represents images of gender-appropriate behaviour
Men & women become “gendered” through pop culture, putting idealized feminities + masculinities on display → we learn masculinity and femininity through cultural representations of gender
Culture is the home of symbols that inform our lives and our deepest identities
Module 7: Representations of Gender
Structural Functionalism on Gender
Gender roles as a social function: Misogyny and sexism is reflective of the dominant culture that has produced the gender roles & expectations and the sanctions and penalities of those who step outside their “perscribed responsibilities”
Because gendrered roles & expectations exist → they must serve some functional need
An oppressive view → supports the dominant ideological position that maintains a system of gender inequality)
Module 7: Representations of Gender
Feminist Theory & Social Conflict Theory on Gender
The feminist theory + social conflict theory definition of the patriarchy → men are the prime beneficiaries of various policies and privileges
EX: Voting & owning property
EX: Glass ceiling - women in the workplace are restricted from going up the corporate ladder, they have to break through the glass ceiling and risk bleeding
Module 7: Representations of Gender
O’Brien & Szeman
Structure of Gender Roles at Home
State that “gender is one of the most basic, if not the most basic binary oppositions”
MALE: Father, a leader who takes on leadership roles (surname, family representative, life outside the home - the workplace, supports family as the “breadwinner”)
FEMALE: Mother, supporter, takes on expressive roles → raise children, the “homeworker” whose primary role is socializing the children while they’re home
Module 7: Representations of Gender
O’Brien & Szeman
Structure of Gender Roles at Home
Gender…
Both…
An ideological force that inserts us into particular roles we may or may not have chosen in a social script we don’t control
A platform for self-expression that may allow us limited forms of rewriting
Module 7: Representations of Gender
O’Brien & Szeman
Structure of Gender Roles at Home
Culture and Physicality
Identities function as stories with meaning and context - and the meaning assigned to identities operate to produce power and pleasure
Gender, sexual orientation, and race serve as markers of identity & social power (culture + physicality)
Material differences are invested with cultural meanings that have material effects, which is seen in the unequal pressures and opportunities encountered by different groups in their self-definition journey
Module 7: Representations of Gender
Erving Goffman
Connecting The Sociology of Everyday life to Gender Performance
Central to the everyday are the negotiations you have with others → and it doesn’t even have to be verbal
Non-verbal communication ensures that communication isn’t limited to language, but that gestures (smirks, hand gestures, winks) speak as much as a sentence
Therefore, how you act (your manner) and dress (style) are primary communicative modes normalized in society
Module 7: Representations of Gender
The Nuclear Family
The dominant and idealized norm when “the home” is thought of → a family unit living together under one roof; a mother, a father, and any number of children
Has been treated as an entity that “needs” protection from the control of state authorities, and who gives that? - The most powerful member, the man, father, the patriarch (Cutas)
Women as a result suffer from their position, prioritzing their family’s interests over their own (women’s rights movements have changed this, they’re less vulnerable, but still vulnerable nonetheless)
Module 7: Representations of Gender
Judith Butler
Gender Trouble: Gender as Performance
The “Nuclear Family” is rooted in mythical ideas of gender
Gender is…
the repeated stylization of the body, a set of repeated acts within a regulatory frame that produce the appearance of a natural sort of being
A performance/act that develops out of, reinforces, and is reinforced by, societal norms and creates the illusion of binary sex → aiding the status quo
Module 7: Representations of Gender
Judith Butler
Gender Trouble: Gender as Performance
NORMS
Social & behavioural norms are responsible for constructing the concepts of masculinity and femininity + the identities of hetereosexuality and homosexuality (ex: Everyday actions, speech utterances, gestures and representations, dress codes and behaviours, prohibitions and taboos all produce what is an “essential masculine” or “feminine”)
“That’s not very lady-like”
“Man up, pussy”
Men wear suits, women wear dresses
Module 7: Representations of Gender
Judith Butler
Gender Trouble: Gender as Performance
A CHALLENGE FOR US
If gender is socialized (something we act, perform, and maintain), it’s also something that we can subvert and manipulate
We can theorize gender from a counter-hegemonic POV - challenge the status quo/norm like Gayle Rubin
Module 7: Representations of Gender
Gayle Rubin
Gender in Deviance
Connected gendered expectations to performance and acceptance (like Butler), but also deviance and subversion
The patriarchy determined the acceptable meaning of “female behaviour” → restricting female autonomy over representations, freedom, and behaviours, so even sexual behaviour can be seen as bad
Module 7: Representations of Gender
Gayle Rubin
Gender in Deviance
All for Men (Adrienne Rich)
The repressive ideologies surrounding female autonomy are structured to aid heterosexual men, to make sure they’re still the dominant ruler/patriarch
Adrienne Rich backs this up, explaining that ideologies appear normal/natural in invisibility, but their objectivity is determined by male subjectivity
Module 7: Representations of Gender
Charles Cooley
Looking Glass Theory
Backs up the Arguments of Butler, Rubin, and Rich
All conclude that gender is an act, an expectation, and a socialized norm → those who don't adhere to gender may experience the looking glass theory and be punished as a result by society
Applying Cooley’s Theory:
(1) IMAGINATION: We imagine how others see our appearance
I imagine how boys see me as a girl, what they would want me to wear to interest them (as much as I hate admitting that)
(2) JUDGMENT: We imagine other’s judgment of our appearance
I look at how they act (symbolic interaction theory), how they talk to me, and respond to me based on my appearance
(3) FEELINGS: Our feelings - pride, shame, empowerment, disempowerment - are determined by our imagined judgments of us
How I feel based on their reactions then affects how I feel about myself (clearly)
Module 7: Representations of Gender
Louis Althusser
Sociology and Subjects: Interpellation & Ideal Subjects
Purpose of ideology: to position individuals as ideal subjects
Ideology is so invisible in addressing and positioning us as subjects that it structures our reality
—> This is seen in our “unthinking” participation in rituals that confirm our roles as ideal and ideological social subjects; if we do them, we are “doing life correctly”
EX: Saying “Good Morning” back to people, holding the door open for the person behind you, and every social exercise/ritual we participate in
Module 7: Representations of Gender
Louis Althusser
Sociology and Subjects: Interpellation & Ideal Subjects
THE IDEAL SUBJECT
Viewers/consumers only have a certain degree of individuality, making them an ideal subject to feel propelled to identify with/identify someone else with what’s on the screen
EX: A friend posts on social media, you see the representation of them - they have already calculated what people will see, how they will see it, and how people might respond (Charles Cooley’s Looking Glass Theory)
Producers of films know this, so they seek to connect us with characters
Seen in when we cry when a beloved character dies, or gets married, or gets subjected to violence
Module 7: Representations of Gender
Phillip Green
Ideology and Ambiguity in Cinema: Louis Althusser’s Interpellation
Ideological purpose of cinema: to structure the viewer’s association and relationship to the film → INTERPELLATION
Viewer is “interpellated” as a subject, a bearer of a familiar social role, which becomes familiar over time
So viewers become naturalized into a series of beliefs, expectations, and norms that you identify as ideological to everyday life → you may relate to social scenarios as they play out on screen
Module 7: Representations of Gender
Phillip Green
Ideology and Ambiguity in Cinema: Louis Althusser’s Interpellation
Althusser’s Distaste for Romcoms (Again…)
Romcoms maintain dominant ideological beliefs regarding gender, heterosexuality, relationships, expectations and norms, traditions (marriage, children, nuclear family) → ALL IDEALIZED
When you identify with a likeness to the male or female character, you’re interpellated into a position, hailed/called into your position as a receiver of the story
EX: Watching “To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before,” and relating to Lara Jean, being called into her role as a shy, innocent virgin, and expecting some twist of fate to tell my love story
Module 7: Representations of Gender
Phillip Green
Ideology and Ambiguity in Cinema: Louis Althusser’s Interpellation
The Hollywood Narrative
All shots and looks that compose a Hollywood film achieve the effect of a continuous, coherent narrative to create a “seamless” story
What we see came from an invisible point and appeared mysteriously before us, there’s no authour except us who identify with the camera’s standpoint
Module 7: Representations of Gender
Laura Mulvey
Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema
Examines the relationship between the viewer, the camera, the action on screen, and gender + the conventions as gender as constituted heterosexually
Conventions of pop cinema are structured by a patriarchal unconscious that positions women as objects of the male gaze → we eventually appropriate/adopt the camera’s gaze as our own (you see what the film wants you to see)
Module 7: Representations of Gender
Laura Mulvey
Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema
THE FEMALE BODY
A woman’s body is presented on screen as an object that is sexualized and objectified
Producers of Hollywood cinema, pop culture, TV commercials will disengage a woman from her body by focusing on areas of her body that they have determined as most valuable/important (her clevage, her butt, her legs, etc.)
So, she’s not able to present herself as a whole being, but rather areas of her body (her face, her smile, etc.) is deemed not valuable, simply removed from sight
Module 7: Representations of Gender
Laura Mulvey
Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema
PRIVILEGING THE MALE POV
Mulvey states that pop cinema is structured so the spectator is made to identify with the male look, privileging a male/heterosexual POV
Which is done in the ways that…
The characters in a film look at each other
The viewer looks at the screened image
The camera looks at the event being filmed
Module 7: Representations of Gender
Laura Mulvey
Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema
Feminist Film Theory
Aims to understand pop culture as a cultural practice that represents and reproduces myths about women and femininity
Also looks at possibilities for a women’s cinema → representations of female subjectivity and female desire
Module 7: Representations of Gender
Laura Mulvey
Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema
GAZE
Gaze: How we are positioned to “look” at the image of the body displayed on the screen
There are two types:
(1) SCOPOPHILIA (THE MALE GAZE):
Hollywood cinema prioritizes male viewing pleasure, the male gaze
(2) NARCISSTIC SCOPOPHILIA (THE PASSIVE FEMALE GAZE):
Module 7: Representations of Gender
Laura Mulvey
Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema
GAZE
(1) SCOPOPHILIA (THE MALE GAZE)
A pleasurable male gaze consuming a female body on display as that body connotes a “to-be-looked-at-ness”
Contains the female body within the confined space of a movie screen, she can’t no longer participate and walk away
A viewer’s active male gaze looks at the female body as she’s presented on screen
Her body/what is shown of it, is then consumed as an object the male viewer is detached from and able to simply enjoy, gaze upon and consume
Module 7: Representations of Gender
Laura Mulvey
Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema
GAZE
(2) NARCISSISTIC SCOPOPHILIA (THE PASSIVE FEMALE GAZE)
A passive female gaze where the female viewer is compelled to take on two roles:
The Subject (Viewer)
The Object (Viewed Upon)
She is then ultimately compelled to take on the role of the narcissist in her “consuming” of the image that appears on the screen
The male viewer consumes while the female viewer next to him is also positioned to consume the same images but in an entirely different way
Module 7: Representations of Gender
Laura Mulvey
Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema
Limitation to Mulvey’s Framework
Assumes and assigns heterosexuality to both male and female viewers
Module 7: Representations of Gender
POP CULTURE REFERENCE:
“Closer”
Writer in London meets two different women and he develops different relationships
SCENES:
(1) Why Isn’t Love Enough?
(2) Why Are You Doing This?
(3) Are You Flirting With Me?
(4) Tell Me Something True (Continuation of Scene 3)
Module 7: Representations of Gender
POP CULTURE REFERENCE:
“Closer”
Questions
How does the film demonstrate gendered behaviour? Specifically, how is gendered behaviour constituted as acceptable or unacceptable, and what stigmas or sanctions are applied when norms are ruptured?
How does the film acknowledge, informally, Mulvey’s Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema?
Module 7: Representations of Gender
POP CULTURE REFERENCE:
“Spring Break Forever”
A group of college girls who rob a Chicken Shack to acquire capital for a spring break trip to Florida, ending up involved with a drug gang
It has been characterized as an “odyssey of excess” and “an exercise in female empowerment” → it is a dream for young women in the film but also the viewers, looking at a reality that is deviant, excessive, rebellious, and nihilistic WHICH is rarely presented to female spectators, only male spectators
As the producer, Harmony Korine was met with binary reviews + polarizing opinions
As Butler explains about gender, rooted in power, control, and agency → Korine alters a prescribed reality, where social roles and expectations are subverted (film isn’t real but an re-interpretation of the world & its characters)
Module 7: Representations of Gender
POP CULTURE REFERENCE:
“Spring Break Forever”
Questions
To complete this activity, watch the trailer of Spring Breakers, a 2013 action film. Take special note of all you see and hear in the film, as you should be able to connect that with the upcoming examination of gender, power, and sex.
How are the ideas above on fantasy, horror, escape and nihilism explored?
Is Mulvey’s argument on popular cinema, gender and the gaze defended, and if so, where and how in the scene?
Is Stan Cohen’s moral panic and folk devil concept from Module 5 problematized in seemingly casting young women rather than young men in the role of folk devils whose behaviour causes a moral panic?
Module 7: Representations of Gender
Mary Wilkinson
Spring Breakers: Breaking The Girl Norms
Korine’s film introduces audiences to unexpected stories about girls and guns in the contemporary U.S. → girls explore criminal behaviour for both and for as leisure (which might explain the bizarre reactions)
Unlike reviews, Wilkinson characterizes the film as a complex critical commentary on the representations of teenage girls and performativity
Module 7: Representations of Gender
Mary Wilkinson
Spring Breakers: Breaking The Girl Norms
Issues of Gender, Power, and Capitalism
CAPITALISM: Wiklinson argues Spring Breakers presents girls as both ideal objects and subjects of hyperconsumerism → they’re driven by material/immaterial commodities so they can present themselves to others in a certain light
POWER: The mantra: “Spring Break Forever,” they indulge in their hedonism
GENDER: Female folk devils creating moral panic → but how come when guys do it, it’s “Boys will be Boys”? - if the movie was filmed with male characters, would it have been received better?
Module 7: Representations of Gender
Ed Cameron
Spring Breakers: Candy-Coated Dreamscape
Unlike Wiklinson, Cameron sees the film as a fantasy, nothing that occurs is probable in real life (two of the film’s anti-heroines are named “Candy” and “Cotty”)
Module 7: Representations of Gender
Ed Cameron
Spring Breakers: Candy-Coated Dreamscape
REBELLION AND ESCAPISM
Cameron also states that Spring Breakers instigates a fleeting suspension of accepted law and order, providing the members of a culture/sub-cultural group a temporary break from reality for a little while
It has reps of sexualized “good girls gone bad,” having a kinship with the porn company “Girls Gone Wild”
Module 7: Representations of Gender
Personal Fashion Blogs (PFBs)
A genre of 21st-century interactive media, platforms for young Western personal fashion bloggers that frequently reinvent the identity they express in the public online domain
A cause and potential solution to metamodernism
Bloggers use social media to control and export self-produced images
Constructed for the female gaze rather than the male gaze
Opposes the language of the dominant patriarchal order established in non-interactive media (Hollywood films, TV, newspapers, photography, ads)
EX: themanrepeller (Leandra Medine), stylebubble (Susie Lau), thestylerookie (Tavi Gevinson
Module 7: Representations of Gender
Female Gaze
A POV in media that is predominantly created by and for women, serving as an alternative to the historically dominant male gaze
EX: Personal Fashion Blogs (PFBs) → women actively define and portray their identities through aesthetic choices for a female audience rather than conforming to objectifying standards set by a male-dominant media landscape
Module 7: Representations of Gender
Self-Portraits
Core feature of PFBs → author posts themselves (selfies), taking control over how they capture themselves as the photographer and model (focused on the clothes rather than the body)
An expression for the female gaze
Frequent selfie-posting = updating and renewing oneself
Allows PFBloggers to embody a “constant state of being in flux” - repositioning themselves and their identities (identity formation through self-reflection)
Module 7: Representations of Gender
I Like, Therefore I am
Engagement with identity and the formation of identity through social interaction on blogs is extended through the “Like” feature
When you “like” content, you are reaffirming their own identity and even the poster’s existence through those expressed preferences
The act of “liking” has become a way for individuals to define themselves and assert their presence in the digital realm
Fashion brands use this feature in marketing, blurring the line between personal expression & commercial content within social media feeds
Module 7: Representations of Gender
Giles Lipovetsky
Hypermodern Times & Empire of Fashion
Do-It-Yourself Enlightenment
Where individuals strive to “seek truth in themselves” but, paradoxically, also constantly seek the opinions and reassurances of others within an unstable environment with a frivolous economy of meaning
“Frivolous economy of meaning” = a societal condition where meaning is fluid and lacks stable anchors
Module 7: Representations of Gender
Giles Lipovetsky
Hypermodern Times & Empire of Fashion
Asking Questions
A societal shift where people are more inclined to challenge established ideas and even their own believes
People are more “prepared to raise questions in the absence of preconceived answers” and are “more comfortable calling themselves into question as well”
In advanced democracies, ideological fanaticism is becoming extinct, traditions are coming undone; meaning, a passion for information isn’t as prioritized → So, people would rather question
EX: PFBs act as a “vehicle” enabling bloggers to engage in this practice of “increased questioning” → they post images of themselves and the comments function, allowing feedback, criticism, and praise → facilitating the questioning of the messages they communicate through their appearance
Module 7: Representations of Gender
Giles Lipovetsky
Hypermodern Times & Empire of Fashion
Hedonism
The continuous desire for a “fast fix,” as seen in the increased pace of image/fashion production and consumption
Boredom is linked to a decrease in meaning in the world
People are afraid of getting “bogged down,” they become restless, with a need to move on
Module 7: Representations of Gender
Vermeulen & Akker
Metamodernism
A cultural shift characterized by an oscillation, like a pendulum swing, between opposing feelings or ideas
Society constantly moves back and forth between different poles (Enthusiasm & Irony, Hope & Melancholy, Naivete & Knowingness, Empathy & Apathy, Wholeness & Fragmentation)
Metamodernism arises in a world where systems like the ecosystem, financial system, and geopolitical structure as increasingly unstable
Module 7: Representations of Gender
Vermeulen & Akker
Metamodernism
Characteristics of Metamodernism
Pendulum Swing
“Meta” meaning (“with,” “between,” “beyond”)
A response to instability and desire for change
Metamodern individual has a fluctuating identity (constantly repositioning themselves and referring to both past and future)
Module 7: Representations of Gender
Vermeulen & Akker
Metamodernism
Swing
A constant oscillation between opposing feelings, ideas, and tendencies
EX: thestylerookie by Tavi Gevinson states how inspiration for creativity is hard to hold onto, which is a characteristic of metamodernism
“Random bursts inspiration” represent the pole enthusiasm, hope, and creativity
Module 7: Representations of Gender
Genz & Brabon
Postmodernism & Postfeminism
Postmodernism and postfeminism contradicted each other due to the difference between a philosophical position and an active position
Module 7: Representations of Gender
Genz & Brabon
Postmodernism & Postfeminism
POSTMODERNISM
Questions truths, narratives → emphasizes deconstruction and the idea that reality is constructed rather than fixed (leads to intellectual detachment about political goals/collective action)
Module 7: Representations of Gender
Genz & Brabon
Postmodernism & Postfeminism
POSTFEMINISM
An active social and political movement aimed at addressing gender inequality and advocating for women’s rights and liberation → how women act/perform their identities (postmodernism’s deconstructive nature seems at odds with feminism’s need for clear goals and a subject for women to advocate for)
Module 7: Representations of Gender
Genz & Brabon
Postmodernism & Postfeminism
Aligning at “Woman”
Earlier forms of feminism assumed a universal experience of “Woman”
But postmodern postfeminism rejects the idea that “Woman” is a single category, emphasizing the differences among women based on their race, class, sexuality, culture (intersectionality)
Celebrating plurality and difference in female identity
Module 7: Representations of Gender
Svendsen
Being Bored
A widespread, subtle, and intangible psychological state in contemporary society, driven by a perceived lack of overarching meaning and a constant craving for novelty
Can act as a catalyst for active engagement and reinvention, particularly within digital platforms like PFBs
The world has become “more boring” because of a decrease in meaning in life → social placebos (need for fast fix)
Module 7: Representations of Gender
Adam Phillips
A Wish For Desire
Links boredom to the “wish for a desire” → the number of PFBs are evidence that reinvention is a social priority for people in the Western world, particularly young women
Module 7: Representations of Gender
Naomi Wolf
Carrie Bradshaw’s Legacy (Sex and the City)
Describes Carrie Bradshaw as the “first female thinker in pop culture” (she’s a columnist who updates her female audience regularly - like PFBs)
Sex & the City → an example of postfeminism in pop culture (focuses on female friendship and sexual independence) → both are considered a source of pleasure and power for women that is resistant to male control
Module 7: Representations of Gender
Rachel Gill
Postfeminism = Distinctive Sensibility
Suggests a cultural atmosphere where women are encouraged to view their bodies as projects to be continuously managed and presented, focusing on their “sexual appeal,” which is all under the banner of “personal agency” and “empowerment”
Femininity is linked to the body
Women suffer under self-surveillance, having an internal gaze
It’s presented as a form of “empowerment,” where women can “take agency” over their sexual self
PFBs are unlike this, they allow young women to construct a self-regarding identity whose primary preoccupation isn’t a sexual identity
Module 7: Representations of Gender
Alexander Forbes
The Metamodern Mind-Set
Metamodern Sensibility: The geopolitical crisis & economic crisis are affecting us (people believed they would have better lives than their parents but now it’s possible we won’t)
Despite this, we still have a willingness to try → continuous post of self-portraits demonstrates this desire to reconstruct ourselves
Rather than succumb to apathy in a changing and unstable world, people are actively engaging in self-creation and seeking validation
Module 7: Representations of Gender
T. Chitternden
Fluid Identity
Fashion blogs of teen girls support a fluid notion of identity
Hypothesis: Bloggers use feedback from their followers to form affinities and build a Social Capital (Pierre Bourdieu)
EX: Tavi Gevinson built social and cultural capital through her fashion blog, her influence went beyond her peer group into the wider fashion industry (Emma Chamberlain can account for this as well, but through Youtube!)