You're so sick of hearing this word I know, but that's because you've been misinformed. When anybody mentions the word feminism you immediately think dyke on a bike or man hater with hairy armpits! When the truth is that feminism is everywhere, but unfortunately patriarchy (not all men, just some!) have lead us to believe it is a bad thing and is perhaps even dead within today's society, but this is not so.
For many years I thought I was a feminist, then I thought I wasn't. The problem was that I did not understand what the term meant. For women today feminism is literally anything to do with being a female and the opportunities that we have in society. So really every woman is a feminist. Some women think I am not a feminist or it doesn't effect me, but actually it impacts upon every woman and their every day life. For example you may not think it effects you, but you enjoy earning money, choosing whatever job you like, keeping your money, not having to get married if you don't want, voting etc. If it weren't for feminism women wouldn't have these things and more. I think it is almost an insult to the women who fought so hard for us to have these rights and by making feminism look bad it is disrespecting females in general.
So if women think that feminism is dead, you're wrong it is alive and all around us, without it we wouldn't have as much say in society as we do. The reason women are still fighting is because there are still inequalities, such as men being paid more than women in the same jobs, and don't we deserve a place within society?
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Femininity
June 2008
I begun my communications degree this year and have been looking at issues such as feminity and masculinity and the way gender is represented in the media. I never realised before that women are still being represented unequally and that men are still seen as dominant; in and out of the home! Women's magazines still depict images of women trying to change themselves for men and just trying to look different.
Hegemony is a word used to describe how dominant groups such as media, government etc try to portray certain ideas as dominant to keep the status quo. Kind of like when your in high school and the cool kids beat up on the geeky kids to keep the status quo well that's hegemony, but in real life and on a greater scale! The hegemonic ideas (ideologies) are kept when magazines and television shows represent certain things as being dominant. For example women have for many years been portrayed as housewives this ideology stayed hegemonic because it was represented in all kinds of media, such as magazines, as the right thing to do and that it was a woman's role in life. Not that there is anything wrong with that if you're into it! But nowdays women are still being treated as second class citizens. I don't want to blab on about it too much, but when you watch tv next look at the adverts and the sitcoms what are the women doing in relation to the men? For example the 'One million dollar wheel of fortune' program has a woman co-host you could call her, but what does she actually do? She presses the letters when they light up and by the way those letters come up on their own! and she wears a different outfit and stands there looking pretty the whole show. Now if you imagine the show without her would you still find it as interesting as you do?
I begun my communications degree this year and have been looking at issues such as feminity and masculinity and the way gender is represented in the media. I never realised before that women are still being represented unequally and that men are still seen as dominant; in and out of the home! Women's magazines still depict images of women trying to change themselves for men and just trying to look different.
Hegemony is a word used to describe how dominant groups such as media, government etc try to portray certain ideas as dominant to keep the status quo. Kind of like when your in high school and the cool kids beat up on the geeky kids to keep the status quo well that's hegemony, but in real life and on a greater scale! The hegemonic ideas (ideologies) are kept when magazines and television shows represent certain things as being dominant. For example women have for many years been portrayed as housewives this ideology stayed hegemonic because it was represented in all kinds of media, such as magazines, as the right thing to do and that it was a woman's role in life. Not that there is anything wrong with that if you're into it! But nowdays women are still being treated as second class citizens. I don't want to blab on about it too much, but when you watch tv next look at the adverts and the sitcoms what are the women doing in relation to the men? For example the 'One million dollar wheel of fortune' program has a woman co-host you could call her, but what does she actually do? She presses the letters when they light up and by the way those letters come up on their own! and she wears a different outfit and stands there looking pretty the whole show. Now if you imagine the show without her would you still find it as interesting as you do?
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