Further feminist theory: blog tasks (Factsheet 169)

1) Feminism- a movement which aims for equality for women – to be treated as equal to men socially, economically, and politically. It is a movement that is focused not on ‘hating’ men, or suggesting that women are superior. Instead, feminism is focused on highlighting the power and suppressive nature of the patriarchy.

Patriarchy-a limitation to women receiving the same treatment and benefits as their male counterparts.

2) hooks published the book to identify the lack of diversity within the feminist movement and highlight the importance of having diversity in the main body of feminism.

3) Aspects of feminism and oppression that are the focus for a lot of bell hooks’s work:

• Encourages feminists to adopt a wider approach to tackling inequality
• Suggests that feminists should focus on aspects such as sex, race, class and intersectionality. 
  
• This is because many forms of oppression often work in conjunction with each other - causing further oppression that is harder to overcome.

4) Intersectionality: is used to describe overlapping or intersecting social identities and related systems of oppression, domination or discrimination. Its meaning is that multiple identities intersect to create a whole that is different from separate component identities.

 bell hooks argues that the experiences of intersectional groups cannot be completely understood if the influences of racialisation are not understood. She argues that understanding intersectionality is fundamental in the journey to achieving political and social equality.

5) Van Zoonen argues that there is a strong relationship between gender roles and the media, and that mass media often leads to much of the "observable identity structures in advertising, film and TV."

6) Gender as constructed- meaning that gender is dependent on society. It is made up by what society deems as acceptable. Links to Butler- "gender is a performance"

7) There is conflict between the ways that feminists often view women's lifestyle magazines. Some feminists consider the magazines politically incorrect as they promote images telling women how to be "perfect mothers; lovers; wives; homemakers" etc - whatever society wants/needs them to be. On the other hand, while these magazines are designed for entertainment purposes, Van Zoonen argues that it is difficult to to reconcile "the pleasure women get from consuming women’s magazines, and the political correctness surrounding hegemonic constructions of gender identities." Also, McRobbie has highlighted the empowering nature of fashion magazines, such as Glamour. 

8) Links to David Gauntlett- masculinity in crises. "constant change"

9) 

•  Whether the institution is commercial or public 
• The platform upon which they operate (print versus digital media) 
•  Genre (drama versus news) 
• Target audiences 
• The place the media text holds within the audiences’ daily lives

10) Links to Hall's Reception theory- media products are polysemic.

11) Links to Hall - constructivist approach  - the way that audiences respond to texts is impacted by their own viewpoints/perspectives and their own conceptual maps.

12) This links to her ideas on intersectionality because it acknowledges the fact that there is not solely one form of oppression that affects audiences/people in society. There are "multiple relations of subordination" that can work together to oppress intersectional groups further.