5. Apart from the obvious decontextualisation and
political instrumentalisation of the concept
feminism shown in the previous examples, some
other debates which imply ideological
confrontations have prompted from the media.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2827035/Scandal-62p-hour-T-shirts-
Shame-feminists-betrayed-cause-writes-ROSIE-BOYCOTT.html
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/04/feminist-t-shirts-made-
ethical-conditions-fawcett-society
http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/sustainable-fashion-
blog/2014/nov/08/feminist-t-shirt-scandal-ethical-problem-economic
Feminism: concepts and terminology
6. Representation: concepts and terminology
Decontextualisation:
• Consider (something) in isolation from its context.
Instrumentalisation:
• The act of rendering something instrumental. The act of direct, organize or
adapt something.
8. Van Zoonen
• In a patriarchal culture (Simone de Beauvoir), the
way women are represented as objects
(objectification/ Laura Mulvey) is different to the
representation of male bodies as a spectacle.
• Gender is performative – our ideas of femininity
and masculinity are constructed in our
performances of these roles so gender is ‘what we
do’ rather than ‘who we are’ (Judith Butler).
Gender is contextual – its meaning changes with
cultural and historical contexts.
• Van Zoonen disagrees with arguments that the
internet, being based on collaboration, is a
technology that is true and close to women and
femininity. Van Zoonen believes there is a rich
diversity of ways that gender is articulated (on the
internet, for instance) in contrast to simple ideas
of an essential femininity.
9. Van Zoonen
Evidence that might support this theory
includes:
• Examples of representations centred on
objectifications of women’s bodies and
other patriarchal representations
• Examples of news that represents the
construction of gender (e.g. debates
about trans women).
11. • Gloria Jean Watkins (born
September 25, 1952), better known
by her pen name bell hooks, is an
American author, professor, feminist,
and social activist. The name "bell
hooks" is borrowed from her
maternal great-grandmother, Bell
Blair Hooks.
• The focus of hooks' writing has been
the intersectionality of race,
capitalism, and gender, and what she
describes as their ability to produce
and perpetuate systems
of oppression and class domination.
bell hooks
12. bell hooks
• Bell hook’s theory is based on the general theory of
patriarchy.
• The concept of intersectionality draws attention to
misrepresentations and stereotypes based on one or
more of gender, race, class and sexuality, and their
inter-relationship in any newspaper representations.
Evidence that might support this theory includes:
• Examples of representations reinforcing the ‘white
supremacist capitalist patriarchy’
• Examples of oppositional black female responses to
news
13. • Feminism is a movement to end patriarchy: sexism,
sexist exploitation, and oppression.
• ‘Intersectionality’ refers to the intersections of gender,
race, class and sexuality to create a ‘white supremacist
capitalist patriarchy’, whose ideologies dominate
media representations.
• She argues that black women should develop an
‘oppositional gaze’ that refuses to identify with
characters – the ‘gaze’ is political for black Americans,
as slaves were punished for looking at their white
owners.
bell hooks
15. Judith Butler
Judith Butler (born
February 24, 1956) is
an American
continental
philosopher and
gender theorist whose
work has influenced
political philosophy,
ethics and the fields of
feminist, queerand
literary theory.
16. • Gender is created in how we perform our gender roles –
there is no essential gender identity behind these roles, it is
created in the performance. Performativity is not a singular
act but a repetition and a ritual that becomes naturalised
within the body.
• Any feminism concerned only with masculinity and
femininity excludes other forms of gender and sexuality.
This creates ‘gender trouble’ for those that do not fit the
heterosexual norms.
• Butler is an important postmodern writer and has defined
Queer theory – theory which deconstructs and aims to
destabilise apparently fixed identities based on gender and
sexualities.
Judith Butler: Theory of Gender Performativity
17. Gender Trouble (1990)
• In her most influential book Gender Trouble (1990),
Butler argued that feminism had made a mistake by
trying to assert that 'women' were a group with
common characteristics and interests.
• That approach, Butler said, performed 'an unwitting
regulation and reification of gender relations' -
reinforcing a binary view of gender relations in which
human beings are divided into two clear-cut groups,
women and men.
• Rather than opening up possibilities for a person to
form and choose their own individual identity,
therefore, feminism had closed the options down.
18. Gender Trouble (1990)
Butler notes that feminists rejected the idea that
biology is destiny, but then developed an
account of patriarchal culture which assumed
that masculine and feminine genders would
inevitably be built, by culture, upon 'male' and
'female' bodies, making the same destiny just as
inescapable. That argument allows no room for
choice, difference or resistance.
19. Gender Trouble (1990)
Butler prefers 'those historical and
anthropological positions that understand
gender as a relation among socially constituted
subjects in specifiable contexts'. In other words,
rather than being a fixed attribute in a person,
gender should be seen as a fluid variable which
shifts and changes in different contexts and at
different times.
20. Gender Trouble (1990)
• Butler says: 'There is no gender identity behind
the expressions of gender; ... identity is
performatively constituted by the very
"expressions" that are said to be its results.'
(Gender Trouble, p. 25).
• In other words, gender is a performance; it's
what you do at particular times, rather than a
universal who you are.
21. Gender Trouble (1990)
Evidence that might support this theory includes:
• Examples of repetition of representations
reinforcing gender performances
• Examples of news that ‘queers’ gender norms.
22. Gender Trouble (1990)
“Gender is a performance and gender lifestyle
magazines provide the script for this
performance”
• To what extent do you agree with this
statement?
