Transcript Feminist Theory

Intersectionality in Bamboozled
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Sloane Hopkins (assistant)
Marginalized by being both black AND a woman
Had to sleep with Delacroix to get her job
Not takes seriously in meetings
Thomas Dunwitty white boss)ignores her pleas
Voice of reason in film
Angela Davis (Former Black Panther)
“Black teenage girls do not create poverty by
having babies. Quite the contrary, they have
babies at such a young age precisely because
they are poor -- because they do not have the
opportunity to acquire an education, because
meaningful, well-paying jobs and creative forms
of recreation are not accessible to them...
because safe, effective forms of contraception
are not available to them.”
Sexual Stratification
• Intersectionality - the view that women
experience oppression in varying configurations
and in varying degrees of intensity" (Ritzer, 2007,
pg. 204).
• intersectionality experience within black women
is more powerful than the sum of their race and
sex (Kimberlé Crenshaw, 1989)
• ''Every time I embrace a black woman I'm
embracing slavery, and when I put my arms
around a white woman, well, I'm hugging
freedom” Eldridge Cleaver (Soul on Ice. 1968)
Privilege
• Unearned advantage
• Thomas Dunwitty -white man
acts and talks like an urban black man
• Uses the word "nigger" repeatedly
• Proclaims that he is more black than Delacroix
and that he can use nigger since he is married
to a black woman.
• Almost all writers for a “black” show are white
Inequality reproduced
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Media
White writers perpetuate myths
Show what whites want blacks to look like
Stereotypes include – wise cracking large black
women
• Wise foolishcracking male
• Gangsta Rapper http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7-TTWgiYL4
• What else?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ciwhh3fB6vE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C45g3YP7JOk
More examples
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcxYwwIL5zQ
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v19PpD5uqL0
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUYqwR1vc5Q
Social Stratification
• The representations of each class in characters
• Hierarchy in TV station: Sloan subordinate to
Delacroix , Delacroix to Dunwitty and
Dunwitty to “the boys upstairs”
• Inability to break from those roles – Delacroix
has to get himself fired to break free
Oppression
• Raid by police of Mat-Tan’s home
• Sleep and eat & Man-Tan not being allowed
into Delecroix’ office
• Sloan being treated as unimportant
• Eventual shooting of Mau Maus
Media’s role in stratification
• The Minstrel show itself
• The fact all of the writers are white
• Even the Mau – Mau’s don’t realize they are
being stereotypes
Social mobility
• Man-Tan & Sleep and Eat’s upward mobility is
short lives and based on their willingness to
ridicule themselves, become buffoons
• Sloan’s upward mobility based on sleeping
with Delecroix
• Overlying message that Man-Tan & Sleep and
Eat have “overstepped” their place and
return to norm in tragic terms
Class Inequality
• The repetitions of each class
• Lower (Man-tan, Sleep and eat squatting in
slum and dancing for change
• Middle – Sloan’s reasonably small apartment
• Upper – Delecroix’ outlandish loft
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Stratification by gender
(Gender inequality)
Sloane Hopkins (again)
Compare her apartment to Delacroix
Started as INTERN (low paying – learn on the job)
For a woman to get half as much credit as a man,
she has to work twice as hard, and be twice as
smart. (Charlotte Whitton)
• “Glass ceiling”
• “Men often perceive an attractive young lady
as having to sleep with somebody
in order to get to the top," (Sloan)
• Sloan: "It doesn't have anything to do with the
fact that I'm intelligent maybe? Or have
anything to do with the fact that I have
drive?“
• Message of that scene, when coupled with her
earlier argument with her brother, is that
whether a black person is perceived as an
upstanding "house nigger" or a scheming
"field nigger" doesn't matter.
• Message of that scene, when coupled with her
earlier argument with her brother, is that
whether a black person is perceived as an
upstanding "house nigger" or a scheming
"field nigger" doesn't matter.
Racial inequality
• The entire context for the film:
• Blacks only way out is by entertaining whites
• Sports, music, entertainment industry and evnn
in those cases, they must play the role of the
“good” blacks (look what happened to Ali)
• whitewashed shows that Delacroix was making
before Mantan, to present very positive images
of blackness (Bellamy, 2012)
• montage of stereotyped movie moments
Feminism
• Belief in the social, political, and economic
equality of the sexes.
• The movement organized around this belief.
Relevancy
• Feminism can be defined as a social movement
and an ideology in support of the idea that a
larger share of scarce resources should be
allocated to women.
• Feminist believe that women should enjoy the
same rights in society as men and that should
share equity in society’s opportunities.
Feminism
• Feminist Theory is an outgrowth of the
general movement to empower women
worldwide.
• Feminism can be defined as a recognition
and critique of male supremacy combined
with efforts to change it.
Feminism
• The goals of feminism are:
– To demonstrate the importance of women
– To reveal that historically women have been
subordinate to men
– To bring about gender equity.
Feminism
• Feminists fight for the equality of women
and argue that women should share
equally in society’s opportunities and scare
resources.
History
• First wave feminism (1830 – 1930) - suffrage
movements promoting women's right to vote
• Second Wave – Legal and social equality
(Bette Friedan)
• Third Wave - women and girls as
assertive, powerful, and in control
of their own sexuality
First wave
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Suffrage movement (women should vote)
Often conservative Christians
Fought for right to divorce (men could/women couldn’t)
Blacks not permitted
History
• 1917 Canada allows women to vote
• 1920 U.S. women won the right to
vote.
• Quebec 1940
• Women still cannot vote in Saudi Arabia,
UAE, Brunei, Bhutan and Lebanon
Weber
• Weber thought that women should be treated
equally in the social institution of marriage,
along with all the other social institutions.
Second Wave
The contemporary feminism movement began in the
1960’s.
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Free love helped escape the sexual double standard.
Divorce became commonplace
Women were “happy housewives” no more
Higher level employment and fulfillment outside the home
were becoming the norm
Second Wave
• 1957, Friedan was asked to conduct a
survey of her former Smith College
classmates
• Found that many of them were unhappy
with their lives as housewives
• Research for The Feminine Mystique,
conducting interviews with other suburban
housewives
Liberal Feminism
• All people are created equal and should not
be denied equality of opportunity because
of gender
• Liberal Feminists focus their efforts on
social change through the construction of
legislation and regulation of employment
practices
• Inequality stems from the denial of equal
rights.
Marxist Feminism
• Division of labor is related to gender role
expectations.
• Bourgeoisie (bosses) =Men
• Proletariat (workers/peons)=Women
• All jobs became equal in communist states
Radical Feminism
• Sexism is the ultimate tool used by men to
keep women oppressed
• Women are the first oppressed group
• Women's oppression is the most widespread
• Women’s oppression is the deepest
Radical Feminism
• Men control the norms of acceptable sexual
behavior
• Refusing to reproduce is ultimate act
• Do not take husbands name
• Do not try to look good (for men)
Socialist Feminism
• Views women’s oppression as stemming
from their work in the family and the
economy (all about jobs)
– An increased emphasis on the private sphere
and the role of women in the household
– Equal opportunities for women in the public
sphere
• “Radical feminism argues women must create,
at least initially, their own media
environments where they can learn to speak
freely and openly in their own language.
Liberal feminism assumes specific changes
within the existing system ultimately can
achieve freedom of expression and equity for
women.” (Steeves, 1987: p. 98)
Third wave
• Attempts to criticize order.
• About reproductive rights, rape, sexism, AIDS
• Rejects claim that only rational, scientific
methodology can lead to valid knowledge
(using “I” in essays, informal, friendly
academic writings).
• Realization that women are of "many colors,
ethnicities, nationalities, religions and cultural
backgrounds“ (2nd wave white middle-class
women).
Third Wave
• Looking to the past is no longer the way to
go.
• We are a global economic world by
technology.
• “Girl Power”
http://g4gyourebeautiful.blogspot.com/2012/01/girl-power.html
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Meant for girls to take charge of their sexuality
Mixed messages of hyper-sexuality
Media movement - Spice Girls
Co-opted by media (girl bands)
Little girls can be anything they want when they grow
up (Barbie)
• Gets politicized – adapted by punks
• Also associated to Riot Grrrl (video)
R
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out
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Punk
movement
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•Do It Yourself
t •Started in music
G
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•Went on to ZINES and then
WEB-ZINES
Recap
•2nd wave challenged double standard:
promiscuous man = stud – woman = slut
•Take control of body:
•2nd wave concerned abortion and birth control
•3rd wave concerns rape, sexuality and sex as a
tool
Backlash:
Girls taught to flaunt sexuality at younger and
younger age?
Porn and sex workers
• Some feminists FOR sex work as empowering
• Some Against
• Actual attitudes vary greatly – as individual as
people (no right answer)
• Get into groups and come up with three
reasons FOR right to work unharrased and
three against
• Good topic for Sociological study
Media affects women's perceptions
• Douglas Rushkoff‟s Merchants of Cool (1999):
mass media seeks out an image of society
which it in turn portrays as an image of society
• Pierre Bourdieu‟s (1993) notion of “Normative
Reflexivity.” We live and learn our behaviour
through the media
• Johansson (2007) we find gender relations and
expectations through our negotiations with
media representations
Dorothy E. Smith
Schooling
• Lack of issues concerning girls and women
in schooling
• Universities and colleges have incorporated
successful programs, but public schools
have not
• Would like to see a change to allow
girls a larger say in school dynamics
Patricia Hill Collins
Black Feminism
• Outside within status of black slaves
• Black feminism by black women clarifying
standpoint for and of black women
• Three key themes in black feminism:
– The Meaning of Self-Definition
– The Interlocking Nature of Oppression
– The Importance of African-American Women’s
Culture
– Gender, race, and class are interconnected
– Society has attempted to teach black women
that racism, sexism, and poverty are inevitable
Carol Gilligan
Social Psychology
Developmental Theory
• Masculine bias is everywhere
• Human moral development comes in stages:
• Orientation to Individual Survival (young children)
• Goodness as Self-Sacrifice (Conventional Morality)
– Defined by ability to care for others
• Responsibility for Consequences of Choice
– Choice and willingness to take responsibility for that
choice = moral decision
Joan Jacobs Brumberg
Females Bodies and Self-image
• In contemporary Western society there is an
obsession with female body.
• The mass media, as an agent of culture, has
reinforced an ideal image that girls are to
strive for and attain; therefore placing more
emphasis on good looks than on good works.
• Women today enjoy greater freedom and
more opportunities than their counterparts of
the past, they are under more cultural
pressure to look good.
Gender Differences
• Girls begin to suffer bouts of clinical depression
form the frustration they experience when their
bodies changes.
• Girls are more vulnerable to eating disorders,
substance abuse, and dropping out of school.
• Body is at heart of the crisis of confidence for
adolescent girls.
• By the age thirteen, 53 percent of American girls
are unhappy with their bodies; by the age of
seventeen, 78 percent are dissatisfied.
Media Influence
• Fashion and the film industry are two huge
influences on societal expectations that
women display their bodies sexually.
• The sexual revolution liberated
women from the Victorian of modesty
but also demanded a commitment to
diet and beauty.
Lauzon (2006, 2011)
• Girls compromise 50 percent of students in high
school computer class but only17 percent of the
computer science students
• Although women outnumbered men in Canadian
universities in general (61%), the number of women
entering ICT at the university level has declined by
18.2% past 10 years
• Females accounted for only 11.5% of workers in the
Game Development Industry
• • Women comprised only 20% of all TV creators,
executive producers, producers, directors, writers,
editors, and directors of photography
Kearney (2006)
• Media production reinforces traditional gender
patterns in a variety of ways
• world of media production has become “yet
another boys’ club”
• study of “digital girls” is an extension of her
girls‟ zine section, with focus on the
empowerment of women creating a business
• women made up only 36 percent of all incoming
students to film school
Rosalind Gill (2009)
• Gender and the Media
• visions of women in media rather than
women’s productions
• Downplays the importance of zines to women
– “only seen/consumed by a small number
• women-only media spaces only harms women
• critiqued those who purposefully attempt to
disguise put-downs of women as postmodernist humour: Family Guy, American Dad
• You just don’t get the joke‟ line of defence.
Donna Haraway
• argues that we are too quick to believe that
science is the answer to all our woes BUT
• advocates that women participating in the
creation of technology as a truly liberating act.
Donna Haraway
• Notion that women should embrace
technology and transform it rather than fall
victim to it.
• 1986 Cyborg Manifesto, she attempts: “to
get American socialist feminists used to
negotiating through a technological
world.”
• Feminist leave themselves wide open to attack
because they themselves are very biased in
their approach.
• Second, although a commitment to empirical
research is not a must in designs of social
theory; relying on such techniques as oral
testimony and the analysis of such content a
diaries risk a lack of objectivity and bias.
• Third, most feminists claim that all sociological
theories are gender-biased but fail to provide
any proof of this claim.
• Fourth, gender is just one variable in human
interaction BUT many feminists believe that
interactions are based solely on gender
distinction. (its not the ONLY problem)