Identities and the Media: Feminism

Media Magazine reading

1) Read Playing With The Past: Post-feminism and the Media (MM40, page 64 - our Media Magazine archive is here).

2) What are the two texts the article focuses on?

Pan Am
Beyonce 

3) What examples are provided from the two texts of the 'male gaze' (Mulvey)?

Shot of the women's legs which will leave the audience interested and guessing who the female is. This will gain the attention from the male audience as a result.

Revealing clothing which the means that the women are presented more sexually and the men are now more intrigued to watch the video.

4) Do texts such as these show there is no longer a need for feminism or are they simply sexism in a different form?

To some extent because people are now accepting the role and using it as part of their sexual identity because they've accepted the roles given to them although it should be challenged if women aren't happy with this.

5) Choose three words/phrases from the glossary of the article and write their definitions on your blog.

Feminism – A movement aimed at defining, establishing, and defending women’s rights and equality to men

Patriarchy – An ideology that places men in a dominant position over women.

Third wave feminism – Was a movement that redefined and encouraged women to be dominant and sexually assertive.

No More Page 3

1) Research the No More Page 3 campaign. Who started it and why?

Lucy Ann Holmes started this campaign and it raised over 200,000 signatures

2) What reasons did the campaign give for why Page 3 had to go?

Children shouldn't see this 
Boobs aren't news 
Doesn't give females a positive representation of themselves 
Sexualising women

3) Read this debate in the Guardian regarding whether the campaign should be dropped. What are Barbara Ellen and Susan Boniface's contrasting opinions in the debate?

Boniface argues that the page 3 should be removed because it's out of date and is something that should've moved on with the times.

Ellen says that it's reinforcing the male dominance and Sexualising female which makes them seem inferior to men.

4) The main campaign website has now been replaced by a site calledSexist News, designed to highlight sexism in the media. Give an example of a recent story the website has highlighted. Do you agree with the view of the website?

One example would be little mix on Britain's got talent, they decided to dress in a specific way which was seen to be sexual but the music that they were selling was to children and about love. This is seen as being controversial as people such as Adel have been seen to do the same thing but she doesn't present herself in a sexual way.

5) How can the No More Page 3 campaign and Sexist News website be linked to the idea of post-feminism?

Post feminists believe that we no longer need feminism and this links back as people are now being sexualised and rather than challenging it people are accepting it as a norm in socities traditional norms and values.

6) What are your OWN views on these campaigns? Do you agree with their aims? Is there still a need for these campaigns in the media?

I think feminism is still needed because there are a lot of issues and debates where women are inferior to men so even though people are fine with women being sexualised in music videos and films it still gives a negative representation and ideology to those in real life.

7) Finally, do you agree that we are in a post-feminist state or is there still a need for feminism?

I think we need feminism and society isn't past the stage of not having it because women still are inferior, face misogynistic comments and are still sexually assaulted.