COMM 101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Shaving Cream, Underweight, Postfeminism
13 Jun 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Femininity/Feminism/Anti-Feminism in the Media
• Stereotypes of women in 1950s/60s—
o Widespread, legally installed discrimination
o 1960 – more woman in workforce than ever before
o Virgin/whore dichotomy
o Biology is destiny –
▪ Body made you most equipped to serve inside the house
▪ Inherently maternal
▪ Passive
▪ Overly-emotional → even hysterical
▪ Illogical and not rational
• Not suited for certain jobs
▪ Bad at math/science
o If women worked outside the home:
▪ Secretary, nurses, teachers and other positions subordinate to men
o Sex objects: used to sell products ranging from cars to stereos to shaving
cream
• Feminism Mystique:
o Housewives were very unhappy
o Launched women’s movement
• 1970s:
o Document feminists’ charges that women on TV are:
▪ Beautiful and slim
▪ Under 35
▪ Deferential to men
▪ Weak and passive
▪ Not smart
• Feminist concerns with how media stereotypes reinforce gender discrimination
• Symbolic Annihilation: the systematic underrepresentation of a particular group
or groups and/or media representations that favor stereotypes and omit realistic
portrayals
o Can be used to talk about any group/groups that are mis/under represented
in the media
o Developed the “male gaze”-- Women—
▪ positioned in the media “to be looked at;”
▪ men act, women appear
▪ Women learn to put themselves under surveillance
o Body Image: Thinness Ideal:
▪ People who are not thin = second class citizen
▪ Average model weights 23% less than average woman
• Responses to Feminism:
o Show working women who can do it all
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Femininity/feminism/anti-feminism in the media: stereotypes of women in 1950s/60s , widespread, legally installed discrimination, 1960 more woman in workforce than ever before, virgin/whore dichotomy, biology is destiny . Inherently maternal: body made you most equipped to serve inside the house, passive, overly-emotional even hysterical. In 2013, on the sunday morning talk shows, only somewhere between 14% and. In 2013, between 67% and 76% of guests on prime time cable news were male, In 2017, on major tv networks, men report three times as much of the news as women do. In 2016 on broadcast news, work by women anchors, field reporters and correspondents actually declined, falling to 25. 2 percent of reports in 2016 from. In 2016, men wrote 52 percent of bylined news articles and opinion pieces about reproductive issues in the nation"s 12 most widely circulated newspapers and news wires.
