"Exploring the representations of masculinity in the crucible of the French Revolution and its aftermath. or considering its various manifestations in contemporary mass culture in the wake of the epochal challenge of feminism and the womens movement consequently suggests that a stable masculinity outside crisis is something of a chimera.There is, infact, every reason to think that like capitalism masculinity is always in crisis, but like the phoenix, it continually rises again."
This is talking about women and men in art representation, male and female nudes. - LINK with guerilla girls
Bad girls and dirty pictures - The challenge to reclaim feminism. Alison Assiter and Avedon Carol 1993
Speaks of the 1960s and 1970s and the baby boom generation; how with the use of birth control pills we could not be stopped by men.
In the 1990s we knew the 'Biological facts about sex and gender that had eluded previous generations, we had the right to work and own property, and we were not going to put our eggs into single-issue baskets as our predecessors had done with the vote.'
"Men had been taking off their ties, growing out their hair, and questioning the male role."
"In most cases it would have seemed incredible to consult a woman on the subject of sex - decent women were deemed never to think of the subject at all." -- This clashes with todays view of women being powerful sexual beings. Programmes such as 'Sex and the city' where women strive to be the next Carrie Bradshaw.
It says that lowering censorship and language of sexuality became more ordinary and we were able to be more open.
"Sexually explicit material seems to symbolize women's exclusion from male society - the feeling that men quite deliberately use sex as a means to lord it over us, make us feel put down." LINK to Guardian Roxanne Gay.
Many anti-porn feminists seem to feel that there is no middle ground between a ban on photography and open, uncritical acceptance of it. -- Could be linked to the Page 3 loss. Caroline Lucas MP wearing "No more page three" Tshirt in 2013. Lucy-Ann Holmes who founded a campaign to end the publication of the topless page 3 girls received death threats. Glamour models going out of business.
"In the dominant culture, women are so aware of being judged sexually in inappropriate circumstances that we feel we must go out of our way to supress any sexual thought or expression." LINK to Carole Rosetti.
Equal at work? Women in men's jobs. Anna Coote 1979
"Today there are still girls who grow up believing that the biggest events of their lives will be getting married and having children." LINK to argos toys.
The book is 'an attempt to show up the unwritten rules about what is suitable work for women." Gives guidence on knowing your rights. Speaks about equality in the workplace, unequal jobs, pay, segregation, masculinity and job roles.
Advertising Cultures. Timothy Dewaal Malefyt and Brian Moeran 2003
"The first women's movement at the turn of the 19th Century had the potential to liberate women from old cultural roles releasing them into full educational and occupational equality with men. However, as Barthes notes, males defended the challenge to their authority calling it unnatural."
Women began to fight back. " The new woman of the 1920's was no longer a threat to man. Instead she was his accomplice in modernity. No longer a challenge, she became a playmate."
In comparison to 1960's "protests against the Vietnam War where women burned their bras in sympathy." Alongside men.
- Link in with the wonderbra campaign
- Sexual exploitation of women
Warner Bra's - "Indulge yourself in Warners. No matter what goes on outside, you feel more of a woman with Warner's underneath."
"Social change was expressed in fashion. " Started wearing looser clothing, abandoning their underwear.
Gender and genius. Towards a feminist aesthetics. Christine Battersby. 1989
The gender revolution.
In late 18th Century "nice girls didn't sleep around, but even ladies were credited with voracious sexual needs. In the past arranged marriages had made this a convenient belief. An upper class woman had rarely been able to choose her mate. How convenient, therefore, she should be pictured as an always-willing sexual partner."
"In the 19th Century, middle-class ideology made believe that nice girls didn't sleep around because they didn't have sexual appetites."
Comments that the stereotype of a woman's sexuality was still continuous, women were shown as the 'sexually devouring partner' throughout anti-bourgeous literature and art imagery of the 19th Century.
Fashion, Culture and Identity. Fred Davis. 1992
Jean Paul Gaultier 'not out to feminise men' 'men will stay masculine and women stay feminine.' Categorising gender roles once again.
Popularity of unisex stylings from late 1960's - 1970's where "some unisex shops absolutely refused to make any gender distinction in the clothes hanging from their racks."
The birth of 'Andrognous dress' women wearing masculine clothing. The garments would have "nothing to say on the matter of gender or sexual role."
"The women in the sensible grey wool suit and the frilly pink blouse is a serious hard-working mouse with a frivolous and feminine soul. If, on the other hand, she wears a curvy pink silk dress maker suit over a plain mouse grey sweater, we suspect her of being privately preoccupied."
Words to use
IDEOLOGY
CODES
GENDER
DECEPTIONS
IDENTITY
METAPHOR
REPRESENTATION
GAZE
SEXUAL ROLES
CULTURE
DRESS
DIVISION
SYMBOLIC
FOSTERED BY
TOMBOY
LESBIAN
Judith Halberstam. Female Masculinity. 1998
"What is masculinity?"
"If masculinity is not the social and cultural and indeed political expression of maleness, then what is it?"
"Female masculinity has been blatantly ignored, both in the culture at large and within academic studies of masculinity. The widespread indifference to female masculinity, I suggest, has clearly ideological motivations and had sustained the complex social structures that wed masculinity to maleness and to power and domination."
"I do not wish to suggest that we can magically wish into being a new set of properly descriptive genders that would bear down on the outmoded categories 'male' and 'female'."
The day may not come where we are not categorised as male or female, but it should not narrow down our sexuality and how we are perceived as sexual beings. Men being masculine and females being feminine sexual beings.
Some females chose their career roles as sex icons, glamour models, pin-up girls, pornstars. That is their choice, not a choice forced upon them by society. Therefore, they should not be degraded for that, but are they putting themselves in a position for that to happen and for society to change their view on womens role? There are these so called 'role models' within the media that children look up to that are being paid to take off their clothes and sexualise themselves and therefore face the culture of 'lads' and the backlash of sexual comments and media attention. Is the woman's 'gaze' still a thing? Are we luring men in and then the first to cry out feminism and a need for gender equality? Is there a difference?
OTHER NOTES TO CONSIDER FROM LECTURES
- Guerilla girls - female nudes, do women have to be naked to get into the met museum? We're still not getting taken seriously. Less than 5% of the artists in the Modern Art section are women, but 85% of the nudes are female.
- Eva Herzigova Wonderbra 1994. 'Hello Boys'.
- Social networking used to perpetuate the male gaze/gaze of the media. Plays on teenagers being body conscious and have those perceptions about life, how they should act as females.
- The Everyday Sexism Project
Emma Watson HeforShe
"It is time that we all see gender as a spectrum instead of two sets of opposing ideals."
Jennifer Lawrence on her nude photo leak
Just because I am a public figure, just because I'm an actress, does not mean I asked for this. It does not mean that it comes with the territory. It is my body, and it should be my choice, and the fact that it is not my choice is absolutely disgusting." It really is about choice. The choices we make as females.Where has her right to privacy gone just because she is in the public eye?
Argos Gender toys
Is it still drummed into us from a young age - take Argos, one of the biggest sellers for childrens toys.. their ironing boards are pink, because ironing is viewed as a feminine chore for the woman within the household. Do men not iron? Fake cooking kitchens, all feminine colours with little girls modelling them because again cooking is still seen as a female role. We are still subtley being categorised into these gender roles without us realising.
The Guardian's Roxanne Gay 'The great 2014 celebrity nude photo leak is only the beginning.'
"It goes without saying that there aren't many nude photos of men being leaked."
"These women's lives and their private choices will be dissected. They are women, so they must be judged."
"In 1983, Vanessa L Williams was the first black woman crowned as Miss America. She had little time to enjoy her achievement, however, because Penthouse published naked pictures of her, and she was forced to relinquish the crown. Williams has gone on to a successful career in film and television, but her biography will always have this footnote. She will always be reminded of the time someone decided to put her in her place because she had the audacity, as a woman, to rise too far."
"Don’t get too high and mighty, ladies. Don’t step out of line. Don’t do anything to upset or disappoint men who feel entitled to your time, bodies, affection or attention. Your bared body can always be used as a weapon against you""Women cannot be sexual in certain ways without consequence. Women cannot pose nude or provocatively, whether for a lover or themselves, without consequence. We are never allowed to forget how the rules are different girls."
ILLUSTRATORS
Carole Rosetti
Comment on how women should act, what they should wear, what sexuality they should be. Non-conformative, wear what you want, shop in the male section of the store, have casual sex, don't have children if you don't want them. That is our choice.
Michelle Moricci shows Disney Princesses as if they were behaving like Miley Cyrus – a female pop singer and role model for young girls today that has caused a lot of contreversy with her nudity and sexual behaviour. A complete contrast to the traditional codes used when representing the princess myth. However, it can be seen as a more realistic, modern view of women today and how women are sexualising themselves; becoming more adherent to standing out and making a statement in order to be seen, rather than 'seen and not heard.'
LAD CULTURE
- What it means to be masculine
- Beard culture
- Hairstyles and clothing
- Treatment of women
- 'Banter'
- Dapper Laughs
- LadBible
- Thebeardly.com - "I see you've shaved, sorry the weight of manhood was just too much." "Shaving says a lot about a man, like I'm not one." This constant pressure to conform.
‘Representation in visual culture is inevitably bound up with ideology. Representation both reveals ideological belief but, it could also be said that representation in visual culture informs and constructs our beliefs and ideas on society’ – Danesi. How we perceive a woman is through codes used within art, film, books, the media. How women are represented influences our beliefs on how they should be treat.
“Codes are ‘organizational systems or grids’ for the recurring elements and go into the constitution that humans make” – Marcel Danesi.
Ferdinand De Saussure drew attention to the fact that representation relies on a ‘shared cultural knowledge’ for understanding to be fulfilled.
In 1970, Shulamith Firestone produced The Dialectic of Sex, one of the seminal works of second-wave feminism. In chapter seven "The Culture of Romance," Firestone asserts that Romanticism ensures women’s position in society as second-class citizens. Romanticism, she asserts, is comprised of 'Eroticism,' 'Sex-privatization' and 'The Beauty Ideal.' Romanticism combined asserts the male desire to play the gentleman, giving women a sense of false-flattery, encourage women to become individuals; paradoxically by doing what makes her the same as every other girl and discourage women from developing real character - thus making men appear more irreplaceable. 'The Beauty Ideal' has one specific purpose: 'it is designed to keep the majority out.' Firestone asserts that just when women begin to achieve the ideal, the beauty ideal changes (to a naturally unattainable figure) to maintain the system. It can be argued this notion of ‘ideal beauty’ is still apparent today influencing how women should react within society and their role as sexual beings. Women are to be in constant reach of a higher femininity.
Danesi, Marcel (1999), Of cigarettes, high heels, and other interesting things: An Introduction to Semiotics, Palgrave Macmillan.
Firestone, Shulamith (2003) – Orignially published in 1970, The Dialect of Sex: The case for Feminist Revolution, Macmillan.
