Thanks largely to the gains made by feminist movements throughout the 20th century, contemporary media images provide a new reimagining of femininity and feminism. This new interpretation of femininity offers a narrative where choice aspects of the previous feminine ideal, such as beauty, are retained while the negative characteristics of gender roles, such as weakness, are eschewed. In other words, this “girl power” discourse suggests that girls can be as powerful as men, but they can do it all while wearing a skirt. In Feminism Inc., Emilie Zaslow examines the influence the media’s promotion of girl power discourse has on the processes through which teenage girls construct their gender identities.
Zaslow introduces the voices of a diverse group of teenage girls from New York City. The girls vary by race and socioeconomic status, a methodological choice that helps to demonstrate how the process of understanding femininity is not individual to certain groups, but rather a collective experience shared by all who grow up surrounded by girl power media. Through focus groups and interviews, the girls discuss how they make sense of their gender identity through a number of different topics, including images of sexuality in the media, clothing and style, their ideas about the future and motherhood, and how they conceptualize feminism.
Through these conversations Zaslow situates girl power discourse in a neoliberal framework, one that highlights achievements by the individual and is less concerned about collective social change. Ultimately girl power can be seen as a “commodification of opposition to traditional femininity” (pg. 159), Zaslow argues. The girls are internalizing watered down feminist ideas that have been repackaged i...
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...ut their gender identity. Because many of these girls came to Zaslow with succinct understandings about how they see women portrayed in the media, a focus on girls who have yet to achieve that level of understanding would start to demonstrate the processes by which girls understand girl power media.
Feminism Inc. does a fine job of examining the intersection of media and real life on the part of these teenage girls. While Zaslow could have gotten caught up in a discussion of media texts, as the amount of media aimed at teenage girls is almost endless, she maintains a clear focus on how the girls understand and interact with this media. The struggle that these girls face as they try to reconcile media conceptions of girl power with the realities of their everyday life is an important issue, especially as an examination of how a new generation understands feminism.
Feminism is a word that is stock-full of implications, and has many misconceptions. Full Frontal Feminism by Jessica Valenti attempts to give a broad overview of what feminism is, and how you should feel about it (hint: it’s positively). The book is directed primarily towards the younger generation, and talks about a variety of issues relevant to the feminist movement today and in history. The weaknesses of the book include the casual writing, the assumptions Valenti makes, and the contradictory statements that are consistently made. The strengths include providing an entertaining, broad overview of feminism, and discussing ways to contribute to gender equality. Overall, the book is more likely to be a positive experience for high-schoolers that identify as women then college-aged individuals looking for a critical analysis of issues society faces in regards to gender inequality.
Orenstein explores the rise of Girl Power in the 1990s and the differences that are in today’s society. The rise and fast spreading message that girls receive from the Disney Princesses is one of her biggest issues. Not only does she disagree, but other mothers from Daisy’s preschool do as well. In the second chapter Orenstein invites all the mothers with daughters that are obsessed with Princesses to discuss the subject, one mother states that she sees no problem with encouraging being feminine and then states, “On the other hand, I a...
She claims that it is “in our Sunday news. With our morning coffee…the endless commercials and advertisements we believe we pay no attention to” (149) By referring to background examples of the media’s omnipresent influence, she allows the reader to understand how easy it is for many women to get lost in the world of images. In addition, she notes that as a feminist professor of gender studies even she is not immune from the negative impacts of media culture. She organizes her argument in what seems to be almost a list; one by one, she gives her readers a multitude of examples detailing the many ways women and girls are being bombarded with various stimuli influencing ways they should act, dress, and
Instead, women are being discriminated and treated as inferior due to the stereotypes that are portrayed in the media. The media creates and reproduces ways of seeing that at a minimum reflect and shape our culture. We can look at the media to understand more about a culture’s values and norms, if we realize the limitations of looking at the media. For example, one may ask, does the news based in the United Sates represent what the American culture is like, or only what stands out from everyday American culture? The answer to that is no. Instead, the media represents what it thinks it will be able to sell and is supported by advertisements. This includes violent acts, the sensationally and inappropriate. Jhally reminds us that “it is this male, heterosexual, pornographic imagination based on the degradation and control of women that has colonized commercial culture in general, although it is more clearly articulated in music videos” (Jhally 2007). Therefore, “media content is a symbolic rather than a literal representation of society and that to be represented in the media is in itself a form of power—social groups that are powerless can be relatively easily ignored, allowing the media to focus on the social groups that ‘really matter’” (Gerbner,
Adolescent girls growing up in today’s society endure many more hardships than in previous years. Adolescence is no longer a time of endless sunny days spent on the back porch with a glass of country time lemonade and a smile extending ear to ear. Adolescence for girls is now generalized as a dark and depressing period of life that often seems hopeless and never ending. Mary Pipher PH.D tries to illustrate just how drastically life has changed over the years for teenage girls through her best selling book “Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls”. Although Mary Pipher was once a clinical psychologist, she articulates very well for everyone to clearly understand her ideas and perspectives. One way she is able to transfer her ideas to her readers without losing any of the emotion and feeling is by using actual quotes by her adolescent girl clients. I feel this is a very effective way to keep the readers attention and to convey the reality of the problems many teenagers are trapped in. I agree with Pipher that our society has changed for the worse even though we are persuaded to think that we are moving in the right direction. Yes, equal right movements have been placed in the law, but the respect that people once had for women has been eliminated. Comparing girls’ true selves to the Bermuda Triangle, Mary Pipher goes to great depth to explain what a mysterious trend this has become. No one can reason why these girls can no longer appreciate anything in life when just a few years before a spittle bug could have kept them mesmerized for an hour. Pipher recalls early in the book the image of Shakespeare’s Ophelia drowning herself due to failed attempts to please both her father and hamlet. She states that adolescent girls are similarly drowning in confusion as they try to sort out details in their life, and decide whom they really want to please. I really liked how Pipher points out that during the most stressful time during girls lives, our society stresses the importance of cutting the emotional ties with moms and dads although this is the time when parental guidance and support would most likely be needed, but maybe not appreciated at the time. However, some parents can actually impact the girl’s choices negatively by insisting that they grow up too fast or to confine to the norm.
Over the last twenty years the Guerrilla Girls have established a strong following due to the fact that they challenged and consistently exhibited a strong supportive subject matter that defies societal expectations. In an interview “We reclaimed the word girl because it was so often used to belittle grown women. We also wanted to make older feminists sit up and n...
In the society we live in, we are all looking for acceptance, whether we like to admit it or not. We turn to the media to see what other people are doing. The media plays a large role on the way we, a society as a whole, are influenced and think about responsibilities and roles of genders. As young children, we are still not sure of who we are and how we should act about certain topics. In order to ‘find ourselves,’ as young children, we look at things that are available to us. The television is found in every home and thus makes it one of the easiest ways for children to be influenced. This is not to say that the adult female population is not influenced as well. Adult females are seeking more information on how they should be as a person in order to be accepted in society as an acceptable woman.
I chose these four journal writings because I believe they are the strongest pieces I have written from the second half of the semester. The main focus of these journals was based on readings under the women as objects topic. The oppression of women has led to females being objectified and used as gratification for men. A woman’s body and appearance have become a commodity, especially in the media. Films, television shows, music and advertisements use women’s bodies to attract their audience and sell products. The movie watched in class “Killing Us Softly 4,” highlights this fact while presenting how women are represented throughout the media. The media has set and perpetuated a particular standard of beauty that is restrictive, but for some many women completely unattainable. The women represented in the media are young, thin and have western or European characteristics. Where does that leave the majority of women that do not fall under this category? This leads to women developing eating disorders to achieve an ideal body image that is manufactured through Photoshop and other picture editing systems. Women of color, women with disabilities or any woman that does not follow this standard is not represented within the media. When a few women do break this mold and become famous, they are set at a different standard. These women’s differences become the highlighted feature of their fame. However, the one constant in the media when it comes to women is the objectification and sexualization of women. This sexualization can lead to aggression or violence against women and the perpetuation of rape culture. The images viewed in the media directly impact how women view themselves and how others view women. By examining the issues women f...
Douglas, Susan J. Where the Girls Are: Growing Up Female with the Mass Media. New York: Random House Publishing, 1994, 278.
Feminism is a common topic in the media nowadays, especially because of how many breakthroughs women are making. In 2016, a woman is nominated for President of the United States by a major political party and many science fields are becoming dominated by women. But it appears that many people are not aware of what exactly feminism is. With such a powerful movement, it is no wonder that feminism includes controversies over the exact definition. According to Shaw and Lee, feminism includes two core principles: inclusive and affirming of women and femininity; and equality and justice (p. 13). By being inclusive and affirming, feminism celebrates the achievements of women and strives to continuously provide a positive stance towards women and feminine
Adolescents is a time of significant life transitions in which young adults learn to cope with changes that are brought about by physical and emotional maturation (Sands and Howard-Hamilton, 1994). During this time girls begin to become more aware of themselves as females, and learn to identify society’s signals to conform appropriately for their gender (Sands and Howard-Hamilton, 1994). The highschool girls that are present in this writers program are starting to unders...
It is shocking to see the digression in humanity’s morals and values over the past decade. As cliché as it sounds, the media is the center of it all. The way women are being represented, from our television sets, the radio, pornography and even art has pushed beauty to the top of the list of controversial and widely debated topics around the globe. “Whenever we walk down the street, watch TV, open a magazine or enter an art gallery, we are faced with images of femininity,” (Watson and Martin).
The collaboration between Walt Disney Productions and International Cellucotton Products Company Inc.(Kotex) may have been a result of financial trouble, but nonetheless purports rather unrealistic expectations for adolescent girls. I came to discover The Story of Menstruation as part of a desire to understand the various complexities of girl culture in American society. In doing so, I noticed that the dichotomous media texts marketed toward girls during the mid-century were as difficult a terrain to navigate as much of the media presentations are today. Such materials perpetuate Judith Butler’s theory of gendered performance which underline society’s construction of femininity in order to define what it means to be a “girl.” The primary sources throughout this study often created conflicting messages for adolescent female viewers. For example, Kotex attempted to market a modern woman and was influential in the beginning of a menstrual hygiene education curricula, yet the company simultaneously was also perpetuating quintessential American ideals. Similarly, sex education curricula of the 1940s point to the importance of educating female students about their bodies, yet sexual desire, masturbation, and infidelity were only typically discussed regarding the male
Throughout history, women have remained subordinate to men. Subjected to the patriarchal system that favored male perspectives, women struggled against having considerably less freedom, rights, and having the burdens society placed on them that had been so ingrained the culture. This is the standpoint the feminists took, and for almost 160 years they have been challenging the “unjust distribution of power in all human relations” starting with the struggle for equality between men and women, and linking that to “struggles for social, racial, political, environmental, and economic justice”(Besel 530 and 531). Feminism, as a complex movement with many different branches, has and will continue to be incredibly influential in changing lives.
In the Article, Ding Culture With Girls Like Me: Why Trying on Gender and Intersectionality Matters, by Susan Williams, Williams examines, outlines, and identifies how race, ethnicity, and class play a role in how girls try on gender, while also gathering information on the intersectional and experimental aspects of the process. She highlights diversity of girl’s experiences to strengthen the ability to asses ways in which societies participate in gender. Williams does this by identifying and highlighting the way girls do gender, examining intersectionality through her concept of trying-on gender, and by including cross-over literature to show how girls make a multi-constructed sense of self. Through this process Williams was able to find that