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Feminism beyond Barbelith

14:49 / 24.04.07

There's the Feminism 101 thread for writing and reading about feminism and misogyny here on the board. It sometimes spills over into being a collation thread for resources and topical feminist stuff from current affairs and I would prefer that to be in a different thread, so here's one. (With apologies to people I may have snarked at unfairly for posting wider feminist stuff into the Feminism 101 thread.)

There are quite a few of the kind of links I'm thinking of, in the Feminism 101 thread: for example here, here and here. Maybe if others agree with the usefulness of making a distinction between the two kinds of discussion they can join in with some linky fun as and when inspired.

14:54 / 24.04.07

Jessica Valenti's new book is out: 'Full frontal feminism', aimed primarily at young women. Interview at Salon, and Alternet article and excerpt.

Phex: Dorset Doom

15:30 / 24.04.07

Jessica is of course heavily involved in the excellent Feministing blog, which is always worth a read.

Incidentally, and not to derail this thread before it's started, Full Frontal Feminism (which I'm going to call F3 for brevity's sake) might be a good book for t3h B4rb to read collectively.

16:41 / 24.04.07

It's an idea, for sure. I'd like to read it.

Bit more Barbelith-internal linkage: Mordant's thread requesting links to feminist blogs, a while ago, and Our Lady's, collecting male feminist blogs.

08:54 / 28.05.08

Quoting from the conclusions of 'Do women count?' by E. J. Graff, Suzie writes at the Echidne of the Snakes blog:

… in the news media, women are mainly shown as having families and feelings and sexualities and bodies and problems. Men are shown to have authority and expertise and power and knowledge and money. Next time you watch a report about an earthquake or a famine, think about which sex is speaking about the geology or weather patterns … and which sex is crying over the dead body, or is the dead body.

I thought this was worth sharing as a good summary of one of the ways gender is constructed in media.

11:43 / 28.05.08

The above is mostly true, but I can honestly say that here in Canada you will see a large number of scientific experts who will be women. Unfortunately they are still the majority of those in the "Victim" role, as well.

But it's true that it's an image that sells copy: The woman crying over a dead body. Women are mostly seen as the emotional ones and the ones who need protection. Both men and women react more to a crying woman because in many cases a crying man is percieved as weak and/or somewhat pathetic. Raw emotion as a branding device: what sells, what doesn't...

Off/yet still on subject: Did you know that studies were done and it has been shown that both men and women are more likely to buy a magazine that has a woman who is considered traditionally "attractive" on the cover? It's the same psychology.

I'm afraid that these memes are either hard-wired or so deeply entrenched that we won't see a change in a looooong time, and most probably not in our lifetimes.

Closed for Business Time

11:52 / 28.05.08

Yeah, agreed that it's more complex than that. I've often been struck by the number of males depicted crying over the death of loved ones, especially from Iraq and Afghanistan. Also noteworthy is how the sorrow of the bereaved mothers in China post-earthquake is reported as driving demands for investigation (and execution, in some cases) of corrupt and/or shoddy builders and building regulators. See todays NY Times for example.

However, the larger point stands. Females are represented as suffering bodies and centerpieces of families more so than wielders of power and knowledge.

Anna de Logardiere

14:38 / 28.05.08

Did you know that studies were done and it has been shown that both men and women are more likely to buy a magazine that has a woman who is considered traditionally "attractive" on the cover? It's the same psychology.

Okay, explain how these two examples of psychology are the same because I don't see the correlation between the image of someone weeping over a body and a female face.

15:12 / 28.05.08

Isn't freektemple saying that the psychological reasons that men have for picking the magazine are the same as the reasons that women have for picking the magazine?

I'm not sure that's right, either, but certainly everyone in a culture is affected by that culture's standards of beauty to some degree. Being a woman doesn't automatically free you from such influences.

15:13 / 28.05.08

I was trying to illustrate that images of women in the media catch the eyes of more people, and in the case of print media, sell more copy, whether by sex or by tragedy.
I am sure that a 5-10 second clip of a woman in distress is consciously used to sell stories on the evening news as well, following the same psychology. I believe that it's exploitative, but it works in the media's favour, so it will continue.
It's also true that there's a perception that men are deemed more trustworthy sources of information, hence, they are the ones being interviewed over a backdrop of women. These are the images that have been taught for many many years. The images and ideas are out of date, but they continue to sell.
I'm merely pointing out that the studies on trends and demographics are being used to sell news media as much as they are used by such varied magazines ranging from Cosmo to Hello, to Maxim and even Men's Health.

09:46 / 09.06.08

Cathy Tinsley in the Washington Post, writing about her team's findings of unconscious sexism applied to women and men in management positions:

"The bottom line, again, is that the same male and female behaviors evoke different judgments, with women all too often being forced to choose between being viewed as likable or competent.

...

Two other lessons stood out. First, the backlash against women appears to be unconscious. When confronted with the results of these studies, participants were very surprised by their reactions. They appeared to have no idea that they subscribed to these gender stereotypes about appropriate behavior or that they judged women more harshly.

Second, women were as willing to criticize the female executives as men were. This is not a gender war; women are not fighting men. They are fighting our culture, our prescribed set of norms that constrain their behavior into a rigid set of "appropriate" categories."

Anyone else feel despair? It's not that the findings are hugely novel; although I seem to encounter people with relative frequency who are ignorant of the phenomenon such asymmetric judgements are replicated wherever I have seen systematic evaluations made.

14:48 / 09.06.08

Studies only confirm what is already evident. Despair is for when I catch myself doing it, even though I know how it works and am making an effort not to.