Theory - Feminism in the Media

From a feminist's persceptive looking at the media, feminists would see most of the media output as being the product of a patriachal society (or male dominated society) which is aimed at disempowering women.

Feminism was a responce to the idea that women are lower down socially than men. Until feminism, women were treated as objects by their male counterparts. The feminist movement, streched as from back as the 18th century, through to the Suffragette movement in the 20th century. Later the movement transformed itself into the 'Land Girls' movement which took place after the war, when women filled the jobs usually filled by men.

In the 1970s, equal oppotunites, and women's liberation caused great unrest and upheval with many groups in the society. In 1975, the 'Sex Equality Act' was passed in England, which forced employers to pay their female employees, the same as their male ones.

Academic feminism was a responce to feminism activists. Laura Mulvey's theory called 'Male Gaze' is the most accurate contemporary feminist text - it describes women's roles in the media and in society.

Patriachy - a society ruled by men, through the figure of the father (patriach), and everyone else is subordinate. A patriachal society would have men dominating the media, which as a consequence media is contrusted amongst exclusively for men.

Mulvey's argument is that cinema audiences look at films in two ways:-
1. Voyeuristically
2. Fetishistically

Cinema audiences watch a film without being watched by the film's characters. The film is watching usually in a darkened room, so the audience members cannot see them. Therefore we are almost voyeurs, watching the people on screen, can lead to two effects.
1. Objectification - of female characters in relation to this controlling male gaze
2. Naristicism - with an ideal image seen on screen (Narcissitic identification).

Voyeurism
She argues that the voyeurism involves turning the represented figure into a fetish object so that it becomes increasingly beautiful.

Fetishism
Fetishically-looking, she suggests, lead to the cult of the female movie star, celebrated for her looks but considered as an object and often treated as such.

Roles of Men and Women
(1)Conventional Hollywood films have a male protoginist in the narative, and assume a male audience.
(2) Male actors are active and dynamic and not always conventionally attrtactive.