We have looked at a range of feminist ideas earlier in the course including Laura Mulvey, Judith Butler, Liesbet van Zoonen, the concept of post- or fourth-wave feminism and more. We now need to explore this further with a deeper understanding of bell hooks and van Zoonen.
Notes from the lesson
Watch this short extract from Orange is the New Black star Laverne Cox interviewing bell hooks at The New School in New York:
bell hooks is a highly influential radical black feminist.
She sees feminism as a struggle to end patriarchal oppression - it should be a serious political commitment rather than a fashionable lifestyle choice. “Feminism is a movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation and oppression”.
bell hooks also points to the importance of race and class when studying oppression.
Intersectionality
Intersectionality is defined as the common point of two forms of oppression and how they work against a particular group of people. For example, black feminism addresses both gender and race discrimination.
bell hooks suggests that race is so significant that the experiences of gender, class or sexuality-based discrimination cannot be fully understood without also considering race.
This is important when analysing power in society. For example, men generally have more power then women – but white, middle class western women generally have much more power than women from BAME backgrounds.
Liesbet van Zoonen
Liesbet van Zoonen is an influential feminist academic and linked gender roles and the media explicitly in her 1994 book Feminist Media Studies. Some of her key ideas:
- Gender is constructed through media language
- These constructions reflect cultural and historical contexts
- The objectification of the female body is a key construct of western culture (building on Mulvey – male gaze)
- If women have to be like men to be treated equally, then equality itself is repressive
Further feminist theory: blog tasks
Use our Media Factsheet archive on the M: drive Media Shared (M:\Resources\A Level\Media Factsheets) or here using your Greenford Google login. Find Media Factsheet #169 Further Feminist Theory, read the whole of the Factsheet and answer the following questions:
1) What definitions are offered by the factsheet for ‘feminism ‘and ‘patriarchy’?
2) Why did bell hooks publish her 1984 book ‘Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center’?
3) What aspects of feminism and oppression are the focus for a lot of bell hooks’s work?
4) What is intersectionality and what does hooks argue regarding this?
5) What did Liesbet van Zoonen conclude regarding the relationship between gender roles and the mass media?
6) Liesbet van Zoonen sees gender as socially constructed. What does this mean and which other media theorist we have studied does this link to?
7) How do feminists view women’s lifestyle magazines in different ways? Which view do you agree with?
8) In looking at the history of the colours pink and blue, van Zoonen suggests ideas gender ideas can evolve over time. Which other media theorist we have studied argues this and do you agree that gender roles are in a process of constant change? Can you suggest examples to support your view?
9) What are the five aspects van Zoonen suggests are significant in determining the influence of the media?
10) What other media theorist can be linked to van Zoonen’s readings of the media?
11) Van Zoonen discusses ‘transmission models of communication’. She suggests women are oppressed by the dominant culture and therefore take in representations that do not reflect their view of the world. What other theory and idea (that we have studied recently) can this be linked to?
12) Finally, van Zoonen has built on the work of bell hooks by exploring power and feminism. She suggests that power is not a binary male/female issue but reflects the “multiplicity of relations of subordination”. How does this link to bell hooks views on feminism and intersectionality?
Extension task
If you’re interested in some of these ideas, there is plenty more reading and watching you can do. For example, watch this TEDx talk by renowned Nigerian/American novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie ‘We should all be feminists’:
The Factsheet questions must be completed for homework if you don't finish in the lesson - due date on Google Classroom.
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